Excellent Effort

I thought that His Excellency (pictured above) ran another sound race yesterday as he finished third in the Grade Two Desert Orchid Chase behind Sanctuaire at Kempton.  He had a bit to find on official figures but it should be remembered that he is still only a four year old taking on seasoned chasers and he is clearly still progressing.  He put a higher rated rival in Wishfull Thinking in his place (although that one stopped very quickly) and was yet another shrewd purchase having cost £30,000 in August, he has already recouped over £28,000 of that in prize money...not bad going I am sure you will agree!

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon, two over the jumps at Catterick and Leicester (who have survived an early morning inspection), as well as two all-weather flat cards at Lingfield and Wolverhampton.  After all of the great racing over the Christmas period, today feels like something of a lull.  Although Sizing Europe won his seventh Grade One race at Leopardstown yesterday I wasn't particularly impressed as he was entitled to win more convincingly on the formbook.  The one that did catch my eye was Jezki who looks like a top-notch novice hurdler - the four year old was heavily eased and still won by a facile six lengths and it will take a good one to beat him any time soon.

I always thought that the prize money in France was much better than in this country so was surprised to see a couple of the French trainers with runners in the UK yesterday.  Arnaud Chaille-Chaille saddled Albert Hall (unplaced) at Kempton yesterday, while Guillaume Macaire enjoyed more success when United Park won the novices' chase at Wetherby - he picked up £6,492 for winning, although it would have been less as only two finished.  In fact, he was a very fortunate winner as Little Hercules would have won but for falling two out.

*****

I wonder if Sir Alex Ferguson as ever been wrong about anything?!  He had a pop at the linesman and the referee in the match against Newcastle on Boxing Day, yet on the televised replays you could see that the ref had made the correct calls.  Are the officials not under enough pressure already without the managers having a go?!

Looking at the current contract situation surround Demba Ba, I see that he can go for £7.5million in January.  Of that, he will get to keep £2.5million of the fee, so Newcastle United will receive only £5million for him.  It seems to me that Demba Ba is a lot smarter than the Newcastle official who sorted this contract out!

I am not sure that Nottingham Forest boss Alex McLeish's appointment will go down very well with the fans.  Meanwhile Blackburn also need to find a new manager...surely the FA should look into the ownership of some of these clubs as they don't seem to have a clue about the game?