2,000 Guineas Day

There is a bumper day of action ahead with six meetings taking place.  The highlight of course is day one of the Guineas meeting from Newmarket with the 2,000 Guineas the feature.  The ground is said to have come right for ante-post favourite Kingman and he is my idea of the winner, although it does concern me slightly that he has been drifting in the market over the past few days.  Some of the Gosden good things have been turned over of late, so it should certainly make for interesting viewing.  As well as Newmarket there are meetings from Thirsk, Doncaster and Goodwood on the flat, while there are jumps cards at Hexham and Uttoxeter.  The stable runs Too Generous (Mikey Ennis) at Uttoxeter, while we will represented by Un Temps Pour Tout (pictured above) and Tom Scudamore on the final day of the Punchestown Festival.

Un Temps Pour Tout goes in the handicap hurdle at 5.30pm and he looks sure to go well despite having the burden of top weight.  Sadly he had to miss the Cheltenham Festival, although it does mean that he arrives here a relatively fresh horse.  Our five year old could probably do with some more rain but the form of his last run at Ascot could hardly have worked out better with Cole Harden running a blinder in Grade One company at Aintree.  Fingers crossed for a big run from him.

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It was a good evening if you were selling horses at the Punchestown sales this week.  Eight horses made six figure sums - Nicky Henderson paid £160,000 for Birch Hill (this one won a point to point at Loughbrickland on Sunday).  It seems these Irish point-to-point winners are very desirable at present.

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I see that owner Roger Brookhouse paid a princely sum for a bronze statue of Arkle that was auctioned in aid of Ireland's National Education Centre for blind children.  Remember, Roger won the Arkle this season with Western Warhorse, so the statue obviously had added sentimental value for him.  Well done Roger.

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If you are going to stay up late tonight, why not take in the Kentucky Derby.  It is hard to know whether it is a good field or not - they have a very short priced favourite in California Chrome at 9/4.  Bookies then have the remainder of the field priced up at 10/1 and bigger.

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It should be a fascinating weekend's football with Manchester City visiting Everton at Goodison Park this afternoon, while tomorrow Chelsea play Norwich and Arsenal take on Norwich.  On Bank Holiday Monday the big game is between Crystal Palace and Liverpool - Palace come here on something of a high after their manager Tony Pulis was named manager of the month.  I will be having a little acca on Arsenal at 2/7, Chelsea at 2/9, Manchester United at 1/3 and Falkirk at 1/2.

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