Peak Out To Follow-Up!

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon - four on the flat at York, Musselburgh, Lingfield and Warwick as well as a jumps card at our local track Newton Abbot.  The stable has two runners at the Devon track, Royal Peak and Prime Location.  Royal Peak (pictured above) is bidding for his third victory in his last four starts after winning just two days ago at Worcester.  I suspect that the form of his latest success is quite strong as he was conceding 21lbs to the runner-up who has won nine point-to-points, the pair of them coming seven lengths clear of the remainder.  He competes with a 7lbs penalty tonight before the handicapper can reassess him.

There is a cracking day's racing at York this afternoon with the International Stakes being the obvious highlight.  It features a fascinating clash between Al Kazeem and Toronad, with the latter stepping up to 1m2f for the first time today.  Consequently there is some fantastic prize money on offer, with over £1million up for grabs across the six race card, while Lingfield is offering a lucrative £27,000...quite a difference!  Indeed, if you had a runner in the big race at York today, your horse will pick up over £10,000 in prize money - having said that, looking through the owners participating I would be surprised if any of them were short of ten grand!

Unfortunately Most Eligible was disappointing on his hurdling debut last night at Worcester, stopping quickly in the closing stages to finish only fourth.  Remember, he was a bumper winner on the track so this effort was too bad to be true so it's back to the drawing board with him.

*****

I thought that Celtic looked poor against Shakhter last night losing 2-0.  Scottish football looks to be in a pretty poor state at present - years ago all of the top teams had a Scot in them, but not anymore.

Meanwhile, there is a great game to look forward to tonight between SSI Fenerbahce and Arsenal.  At least Arsenal are able to play all of their new signings...oh hang on, I am being sarcastic!  Arsenal need to win this or manager Arsene Wenger will be under pressure again.  Chelsea take on Aston Villa tonight at 'The Bridge' and that should be worth watching.