Thursday Jottings

                On the Gallops

Today we have four meetings, three on the flat at Salisbury, Haydock and Wolverhampton plus a jumps card at Sedgefield.  There is also racing in Ireland at Laytown where they race on the beach when the tide has gone out.  It must be the only race track of its kind in the World.  They tell me the pubs do a good trade!  It is definitely wirth a watch, racing starts at 2.35pm.  David's one runner Franklin Roosevelt was again disappointing at Southwell yesterday back over hurdles.  He seems fine this morning and he is a six time winner so hopefully we can find the key to unlocking his 7th success next time.

Richard Hughes is still 10 winners behind Ryan Moore in the flat jockey's championship but he is now favourite to win it.  I think I would still be on Ryan with his 10 winner start but it should be an interesting battle.

Jim Best's yard landed a nice touch at Southwell yesterday.  He had two in the race but took one of those out and then switched AP to ride the one left in the race.  Have your money down and then go and collect, I like it!  If you did back it you do have AP to thank as it was a great ride from the champ.

I just watched Andy Murray lose the US Open quarter final to Novak Djokovic.  I am not sure Andy has yet got over his back surgery and he looked very tired in the match that lasted 3 1/2 hours.  Both players are 27 years old so while Djokovic keeps playing I think Andy will struggle to win against him.  The game went on to 2am in the morning and still 15,000 people watched, don't New Yorker's work?!

England beat Norway 1-0 in the football friendly last night.  No-one who played last night would get into the 1966 team and Norway would struggle in League 1!  As I have said before, until we limit our Premier League teams to say only three foreign players are we going to be any good at World level.  I think Gerard and Lampard must be better than I gave them credit for!

I see Betfair is increasing it's minimum phone bet from £10 to £15.  They just want you to lose your money quicker!  Have a nice day.

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