Three Runners

  Kings Palace (nearside) on the gallops

Today there are three jumps cards at Cheltenham, Doncaster and Lingfield plus two flat cards at Southwell and Wolverhampton.  David has two runners at Cheltenham and one at Doncaster.  The Cheltenham card looks very competitive as you would expect and David runs Kings Palace in the 1.50pm, 3 mile novice hurdle.  He has won both of his starts this season, including quite impressively at this course back in October.  The seven runners have won 15 races between them this season and it is a race really worth watching live on Channel 4.  Salut Flo runs in the feature chase of the day.  He is having his first run for nearly 700 days when he was the winner at the Cheltenham Festival.  This is a big ask for our eight year old but he seems in good form at home and it will be interesting to see how he gets on.  The 3.00pm race is like the Champion hurdle.  The New One looks to have Zarkander to beat and he did that quite easily when they met last time out but it is sure to be a good race.  Our owner Gino has a share in The New One, you know what Italians are like, if it wins it will be like Italy winning the World Cup!

It was not a very lucky Friday 13th for Pond House.  Close House fell on his chasing debut when still looking to be going quite well and there were slightly disappoitning runs from Vif Argent, Dan Breen and Doctor Harper at Cheltenham.  Meanwhile at Bangor it was a great stable debut for The Darling Boy who finished second.  He lead all the way, was then headed but battled back bravely to just get beaten on the nod in a photo finish.  He was trying to give the winner twelve pounds so it was an encouraging first run and he looks sure to provide us with much fun in the coming months.  Back at Cheltenham it was a great moment for the Scudamore family when Tom Scu won the Grade 3 chase on Monbeg Dude trained by brother Michael.  Tom was even getting quite emotional in the interview!

In the cricket England could get a draw with the Aussies.  They are batting quite well though still trying to hook the odd ball!

My football treble today is Dundee 4/11, Chesterfield 8/11 and Southend 11/10.  Have a nice day.