Leading The Way!

Unfortunately our sole runner at Ffos Las yesterday, High Ville fell at the third hurdle which was quite a surprise when you consider that six of the hurdles were ommited due to the low sun.  There are five meetings taking place this afternoon, four on the flat at Royal Ascot, Redcar, Newmarket and Goodwood as well as a jumps card at Market Rasen.  What a performance from Leading Light yesterday in the Ascot Gold Cup - it was a thrilling finish with Joseph O'Brien giving his mount a great ride to just deny the Queen's Estimate back to back wins in the race.  A drop back in trip to two miles looks like the order of the day for the four year old...could he be the next Yeats?

Unfortunately our sole runner at Ffos Las yesterday, High Ville fell at the third hurdle which was quite a surprise when you consider that six of the hurdles were ommited due to the low sun.  There are five meetings taking place this afternoon, four on the flat at Royal Ascot, Redcar, Newmarket and Goodwood as well as a jumps card at Market Rasen.  What a performance from Leading Light yesterday in the Ascot Gold Cup - it was a thrilling finish with Joseph O'Brien giving his mount a great ride.  A drop back in trip to two miles looks like the order of the day for the four year old...could he be the next Yeats?

The big race of the day is the Coronation Stakes, a Group One contest for fillies.  If My Titania is as good as connections seem to think she is, she should win.  She has an absence of 264 days to overcome so it would be a good performance.  Having said that, they have good gallops and most trainers know how to get them fit enough at home.

The stable has no runners today, although we have a number of entries over the weekend at Worcester including winning novice chaser and quality hurdler Top Wood (pictured right).  He has been in good form at home and is in at Newton Abbot next week as well as Worcester so we could be seeing this exciting prospect again before too long.

I saw my old mate Mickey Fletcher the other day.  He had a good horse called Kailash who won his first seven races with Martin a few years ago.  Mickey, a bookmaker is one of the last great characters left in racing and he is celebrating his 69th birthday today.  He used to have the nickname "The Asparagus Kid" but that is another story!

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There are plenty of England flags at half mast, sorry, price this morning after they were beaten 2-1 by Uruquay last night.  It is the first time since 1958 that England have managed to lose their first two matches in the World Cup Finals and leaves us all but out of the tournament.  There will be plenty of shops, stores and petrol stations trying to knock out the last of their football merchandise before the England team get on their flight home.

As usual, the press are responsible for hyping our team up.  While there are a few exciting young players on the team, there is not one who would make it into a World XI.  Luis Suarez was the only world class player on the pitch last night and he made our central defence look like a Sunday League team.  How can our national side be that bad?  I have said it before and I honestly believe I am on to something when I say that the Premiership teams should have at least seven English born players in their starting line-up.  It has worked in cricket (despite England's recent woes) so is there any reason why it shouldn't work in football?  We also need a new manager who has some youth and fresh ideas...let's get back to the drawing board.

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I see that Andy Murray has reported that he is in better shape than last year just ahead of his defence of his Wimbledon title.  I must have been watching a different Andy Murray who has been losing recently.  He did beat Tommy Robredo in an ehibition match yesterday, mind you everyone has been beating the Spanish recently!

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