Bangor's Big Names

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon, three of them are on the flat at Warwick, Southwell and Wolverhampton as well as a jumps card at Bangor.  Surprisingly for a Thursday afternoon there look to be a few potential stars on show at Bangor today.  Dursey Sound was a useful hurdler last term and now turns his hand to fences, while Donald McCain introduces a juvenile hurdler that set him back a cool €175,0000 so keep an eye out for Dispour to start paying back some of that hefty price tag this afternoon.  Hazy Tom and Cloud Brook are other names to look out for.  The stable has no runners this afternoon, although we do have a handful of entries at Fontwell and Hexham tomorrow including Street Entertainer and Decoy (pictured above)

I am surprised to see that Ryan Moore has decided to take the day off.  It looks to me like he has conceded the jockeys' championship to Richard Hughes, although the current champion begins a four day ban today.  Even so, with an advantage of 19 winners and only a month left of the season, he looks to be in a very commanding position.

With racing on Good Friday now appearing to be a formality it can't be long before we are racing 365 days per year (including Christmas Day), weather permitting of course. They already race on Christmas Day in France, so why bother giving our jockeys a day off - it's not like they are allowed to eat Easter eggs or a Christmas dinner owing to their weight so they can't have any excuses!

I was interested to see that Aidan O'Brien has a runner in the maiden hurdle at Clonmel in the 3.15pm.  Don't forget the master of Ballydoyle sent out Istabraq to win three consecutive Champion Hurdles...let's hope he doesn't decide to start sending out too many runners over the sticks - it's a hard enough game already!

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Manchester City took a 3-1 pasting in the Champions League and it looks like it is time for goalkeeper Joe Hart to take a break.  He was largely to blame for their home defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich.

I see that David Moyes has made no fewer than nine changes to the Manchester United team that was beaten by West Brom at the weekend - it looks suspiciously like the manager doesn't have a clue what his best line-up is.

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I reckon the post must be bad in America.  It has taken since January for disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong to return his Olympic medal.  Surely it would have been quicker if he had cycled!