Plumpton, Taunton Abandon

Over the weekend I thought that Battle Group ran a sound race to finish third at Cheltenham on Saturday on what was very testing ground.  He has always possessed plenty of ability and could yet pop up in a decent contest despite yet having won over fences.  Shoegazer ran a decent race in a very competitive handicap chase, just emptying out after the last - it looked to me as though he was just found out over this trip by the heavy going. Of course the big disappointment of the weekend was Grands Crus in the Argento Chase, the favourite pulling up four out - I am sure he will be seen to better effect on a sounder surface and it is far too early to write him off just yet.

There was some very entertaining racing at Cheltenham on trials day and once again I was amazed by the performance of Sprinter Sacre who put in some prodigious leaps on his way to another convincing win - he looks to be another real superstar.  Champion jockey A P McCoy was in his usual peerless form with an inspired ride aboard At Fishers Cross to master The New One close home despite having wasted to 10 stone 3 pounds to ride Mr Watson (also won) later on the card.

There are just two all-weather flat cards this afternoon at Kempton and Wolverhampton following the abandonment of Plumpton.  Sadly there is more bad news as Taunton have already cancelled their meeting scheduled for tomorrow due to waterlogging.

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There were some shock results to the fourth round of the FA Cup over the weekend with Liverpool getting beaten 3-2 by Oldham.  Ironically, this result may not even be enough to save the Oldham managers job!  Liverpool boss Brendan Rogers should certainly have played his strongest team from the start - it is clear to see that his squad is nowhere near as strong as he thought it was.  Meanwhile, Leeds also produced an upset by beating Spurs 2-1, while Brentford drew 2-2 with Chelsea and Luton were fantastic in beating Norwich, well done the Hatters!

*****

Having looked to have been in unstoppable form for much of the Australian Open tennis, Andy Murray came up short in the final against Novak Djokovic.  Djokovic was hitting the ball much the harder and was making fewer mistakes - Murray looks like he has moved up to world number two and I'm sure his turn will come in another Grand Slam Final before too long.

*****

Q. How does Moses make his tea?
A. Hebrews it!