Sandown, Worcester Runners

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon; three on the flat at Catterick, Lingfield and Sandown as well as a couple of jumps cards from Worcester and Uttoxeter.  The stable has a runner under both codes today - Purple 'N Gold on the level at Sandown and Weather Babe over hurdles in the 9.00pm at Worcester.  Weather Babe (pictured above) ran a cracker to finish second at Market Rasen recently and runs from the same mark of 125 which is 6lbs ahead of her official handicap mark - she looks to be the one to beat under Tom Scudamore.  Meanwhile, Purple 'N Gold would have a chance of sorts in the 7.40pm at Sandown - he rarely runs a bad race but this is a trappy little race.  He will enjoy the ground and has the assistance of Ryan Moore in the saddle.

Surely today is the day that A P McCoy finally equals or beats MCP's career total of winners?  The champ has gradually been edging closer but the last few winners have been proving quite elusive.  He has seven chances this afternoon spread across the two jumps meetings so we wish him all the best with that.

I see that a Frankel filly made £550,000 at auction in Japan yesterday.  Sheik Fahad has another ten Frankel foals at home - just think that is around £5million worth of foals...I'm not sure I would be letting them run around in a field!  They are going to sell another one at the Tattersalls Sales in December.

Poor old Frankie Dettori is have trouble selling his house.  The colourful Italian has had his property on the market for over a year without any interest and has consequently had to knock £300,000 off the original asking price of £2.75million.  Poor love, I wonder how he is going to eat this week?!

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All I keep reading about in the sports pages of the newspapers is how the Premier League football clubs are paying a fortune to bring more foreign players in.  It is hardly any wonder that we cannot produce any home grown talent to compete at national level when there is nowhere for them to play in the upper echelons on the domestic front.  Just look at Chelsea who have just signed £32million striker Diego Costa.  I have been banging on about it for some time, but why can the FA not limit the number of overseas players who play for any of our domestic sides?  I know it will mean short term pain as the Premier League will no longer feature all of the greatest talent, but it will be a case of long term gain once our own talent has had the opportunity to play on all the big stages.

And what about the management front?  Most of the International team bosses have been sacked or have resigned following their failures in the World Cup, but not England!  No, they will probably extend Roy Hodgson's contract so that he can gain more experience!

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I am looking forward to the start of the Open golf tournament tomorrow.  David Howell will strike the first ball at 6.25am - he will need to be up at 4.30am to get a bit of practice before teeing off.  We wish him the best of luck - he is a lovely chap who has often dropped into our Cheltenham Fetival hospitality marquee.

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