Two at Newbury

    Massannie - triple winner this season

David has just the two runners today at Newbury, Massannie and No Secrets.  Massannie has run consistently and won her first three starts of the season.  She is quite a character and sometimes has her own ideas about what she wants to do, which was what happened at Exeter last time out where she still ran a a good race to finish second.  She has first time headgear of cheekpieces on this afternnon which will hopefully sharpen her up a bit and she is very talented.  She could run okay with Tom Scu in the saddle at quite a big price of 14/1.  No Secrets ran well at this track on his seasonal debut to finish fourth in a good race but was a little disappointing at Taunton after that.  He has had a little break, will appreciate the better ground than last time and could also run well with Tom Scu on board.  There are three other jumps meetings on around the country today at Kelso, Stratford and Bangor plus a flat card at Lingfield.  There is great prize money on offer at Lingfield as there is a Group 3 and two Listed races to watch out for.

In yesterday's action Thomas Junior ran okay to finish fourth at Newbury in a 17 runner handicap.  It was a good effort by our five year old who is a big chasing type and he is improving with every run.  Surely his win turn is not too far away but I am sure he will make a lovely chaser in time.

I see that Pond House has two horses in the top 20 of dual purpose greats, Balassani and Junior.  Mark Perrett won the 1994 stayers hurdle on Ballasani and he also won the Ascot stakes.  MCP likes winning races at Royal Ascot.  Junior also won the Ascot stakes for David before going on to win the Kim Muir at the Cheltenham Festival.  Both are special horses and it is fantastic to have them at Pond House.

The big news of the day yesterday was of course the reitrement of jockey Joe Tizzard.  He is only 34 years old but sportsmen and women normally know when the time is right to call it a day.  He has been a good solid jockey for many years.  He used to ride a lot for Paul Nicholls and then mostly for father Colin in his later years and was of course associated with the great Cue Card.  He did ride one or two winners for Pond House and we would all like to wish him well in his retirement from the saddle.

There is a great football match on the TV later today, West Ham versus Man Utd at 5.30pm.  The Hammers look over priced at 7/2.  there is also the big game between Chelsea and Arsenal at 12.45pm.  What a great days action to look forward to.  My football bets are Liverpool 2/5, Tottenham 5/4 and Brentford 8/13.  

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