Four Wincanton Runners

There are four meetings to look forward to this afternoon, three over the jumps at Wincanton, Chepstow and Market Rasen and an all-weather flat card at Kempton.  The stable has four runners at Wincanton today; Decoy (pictured above), Bygones Sovereign, Knight Of Noir and newcomer Gotham City.  Knight Of Noir was the winner of a Larkhill point-to-point and ran a promising race when runner-up in a Towcester bumper back in May.  He looks a nice type for stable sponsors Wayne and Sarah Clifford - they sponsor plenty of races at Wincanton as well so it would be great if he could get on the scoreboard for them.

There are a couple of valuable race for a midweek fixture at Market Rasen - there is a handicap hurdle worth more than £16,000 and a handicap chase that is worth almost £10,000 - as you would expect for the money on offer, they are both competitive races.

It never fails to amaze me how much better the prize money is abroad.  Green Moon earned £52,104 when racing in Europe, but since moving to Australia he has accumulated earning of over £3.3million!  Where do they get their prize money from?  We should certainly be following suit!

I see that David has confirmed that 2010 Chester Cup winner Mamlook has been retired.  What a fabulous horse he was - high class on the level (remember he was also placed in the Ascot Stakes at Royal Ascot as well as in two runnings of the Cesarewitch at Newmarket), over hurdles and over fences - he was a straightforward horse with no vices so let's hope that he enjoys a long and happy retirement.

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I was intrigued to hear a name from the past recently.  Colourful character Rod Simpson has emerged from the ashes once again to come out of retirement at the age of 67 to become assistant trainer to Helal Al Alawi in the United Arab Emirates.  Rod used to wear some outlandish clothes when he trained in this country - he was a real character.  I once had to go in front of the stewards and Rod had told me to keep stepping off the square mat as it would annoy them...he was right!  As I say, a real colourful character, although how that will be received in the UAE I'm not quite sure!

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The Aussie's have staged something of a late rally on day one of the first Ashes Test to close on 273-8.  We had them in real trouble at one point with Stuart Broad looking in good form with five wickets to his name - you know you must be doing alright when you are getting stick from the crowd!