Taunton, Towcester Runners

Today we have three meetings to look forward to, two over the sticks at our local track Taunton and Towcester, as well as an all-weather flat card at Wolverhampton.  The stable has runners at both jumps cards - Obistar (picture above left) and Keep The Cash go at Taunton, while Western Diva ventures a little further afield as she contests the bumper at Towcester.  Western Diva was unfortunate to slip up last time out but had previously shown ability when runner-up in a couple of bumpers so let's hope that she can atone for that today - Tom Scudamore is in the saddle.

I thought that No Secrets ran a good race at Newbury on Saturday in the staying handicap chase.  It looked like quite a decent contest and he wasn't beaten at all far by the favourite - there should certainly be something similar in him before too long.

I see there is a great picture of our stable jockey Tom Scudamore in the Racing Post today with trainer David Bridgwater.  Bridgy is wearing a sheepskin coat which looks older than Scu!  I'm sure that is the same coat that Bridgy used to wear when he rode for Martin - do people still wear sheepskins?

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I can see the advert now 'Should have gone to Specsavers!'  I am talking about Premier League referee Andre Marriner who unbelievably sent off Kieran Gibbs at the weekend instead of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the Arsenal versus Chelsea game.  Maybe he didn't have enough room in his book to put that very long name?!

I watched Barcelona beat Real Madrid last night 4-3 with Lionel Messi scoring another hat-trick.  It was a great match with an amazing standard of play - the football looks a bit sharper than our Premier League.

Okay you United fans (and I am referring to you in particular Tony!) I must admit that Rooney scored a fantastic goal as the beat my team West Ham, although I must ask if it was a foul on our centre half?  I will certainly look forward to the match tomorrrow night between United and City - the kick off is at 7.45pm.

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I did say that I thought England would struggle to get out of the group stages of the Twenty Twenty World Cup cricket championship and it would seem that I was right after we were beaten by New Zealand.  There was certainly no thunder and lightning from England with our best bowler Stuart Broad getting hit for 6-4-6 in a crucial fifth over.

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