2 Runners At Ffos Las

It's another bumper day of action with five meetings taking place today - three on the flat at York, Bath and Wolverhampton as well as a couple over jumps at Newton Abbot and Ffos Las.  The stable has two runners at Ffos Las, Diamond's Return and My Brother Sylvest.  Diamond's Return (pictured above) did win three on the trot last year and is still paying for it now with a handicap rating of 111 - he has been competitive from this mark in the past but it is worth noting that his successes came from 90, 90 and 97 - he looks like he could do with the handicapper relenting a bit.  He ran creditably for a long way at Worcester earlier in the week and today's longer trip could help.

Following his success at Worcester on Monday, Royal Peak could only finish fourth at Newton Abbot last night.  He ran okay and looked to be going as well as anything turning into the straight before staying on at just the one pace.  Maybe he could do with a little break, although his handicap rating of 99 is set to rise yet further.  He still looks capable of winning races and will certainly jump fences in the future.

Watching the Juddmonte International at York yesterday, I couldn't help but be a little underwhelmed by the whole thing when the much hyped shoot-out between Al Kazeem and Toronado failed to materialise.  Al Kazeem looked a bit flat after some hard races on fast ground while Toronado was the first one beaten - something is clearly amiss there as he was beaten long before the trip became an issue.  With only one winning favourite at York yesterday the punters took a bit of a bashing - fortunately Telescope was on hand to get them out of trouble in the Great Voltigeur - it was an impressive performance in this recognised St Leger trial.  The ironic thing of course, he was the only runner in the race that is not engaged in the flat season's final Classic!

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I must say that I did feel sorry for cricketer Simon Kerrigan who played in his first Test match yesterday against the Aussies.  He was hit all around the ground and would have struggled to get into our stable team on this showing - too many full tosses and long hops - the poor lad looked like he wanted a big hole to open and swallow him up.  Our David has been known to bowl the odd spinner and googly!

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There was a good result for Arsenal yesterday as they beat Fenerbahce 3-0.  Apparently the board have said that Wenger has £100 million to spend so what is he waiting for?  Perhaps he is waiting for the sales so he can pick up the players he wants a bit cheaper?!

Meanwhile Chelsea beat Aston Villa 2-1, although Ivanovic was lucky not to have been sent off for elbowing Menteka...just to rub things in, he also scored the winning goal!