Shergar Cup Day

It's a busy day of action on the flat with meetings taking place at Haydock, Ascot, Newmarket, Redcar, Ayr and Lingfield.  Ascot hosts their Shergar Cup fixture and while I'm not sure it means an awful lot to your average betting shop punter, if it raises the profile of horse racing in this country it has to be a good thing.  I'm still not sure they have got it right when it comes to the colours - all very similar designs and in only a handful of team colours.  I would imagine that it would be very confusing for the first time viewer - God knows, it is hard enough to follow for me!

It's a busy day of action on the flat with meetings taking place at Haydock, Ascot, Newmarket, Redcar, Ayr and Lingfield.  Ascot hosts their Shergar Cup fixture and while I'm not sure it means an awful lot to your average betting shop punter, if it raises the profile of horse racing in this country it has to be a good thing.  I'm still not sure they have got it right when it comes to the colours - all very similar designs and in only a handful of team colours.  I would imagine that it would be very confusing for the first time viewer - God knows, it is hard enough to follow for me!

I bet some of the trainers who have runners in the Shergar Cup wish they could have chosen their own jockeys (they are chosen by draw).  It will be good to see recently unretired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens back in action in this country, while lady jockey Rosie Napravnik should be interesting to watch having bagged 1,597 winners and over £53 million in winning prize money.

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Many happy returns to Sue Mills (pictured right).  Sue is a successful owner/breeder who has had many good horses with us at Pond House down the years including Mr Cool, Miss Cool, Very Cool and current Pond House inmate Barney Cool.  I could tell you an embarrassing story about bloodstock agent and former poor jockey Tom Malone involving Sue.  Malone managed to get beaten aboard one of Sue's horses and promptly returned to the unsaddling enclosure and told her that the horse ought to go show jumping - the horse in question then promptly consented to win five out of his next eight starts.  It just goes to show that not all jockeys are good judges!  Anyway, happy birthday Sue...

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It is going to be a struggle for England's cricketers in the fourth Test in the Ashes series at Durham.  They are currently on 238-9 and I suppose if our batsmen managed to get into trouble, hopefully so will the Aussies.  It seems to me that the bowlers are better than the batsmen in this series...or maybe they just aren't quite as bad?!  Luckily I did not get involved in a bet.

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I see that FA Chief Greg Dyke says that it is impossible to play the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in June.  With temperatures regularly reaching 50°c, anyone in their right mind would have to agree with him.  The trouble is, if they moved the fixture to October, it would make a real mess of the leagues throughout Europe.  Whoever chooses the countries to host these events needs their head examining...Qatar is not exactly known as a great footballing nation!