AP Hops It To Folkestone!

I see that A P McCoy was due to receive his OBE at Buckingham Palace yesterday, but owing to his commitments the champion jockey was unable to attend.  The Spring is now being pencilled in as an alternative date - however, with all of the coverage surrounding Prince William's engagement to Kate Middleton I don't suppose the Palace were too worried!  There is a great picture of A P at Folkestone yesterday on Space Hopper - no not the horse, but one of those retro toys that bounces up and down!  You can see that the champ hasn't lost any of his style...even on a toy!

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There is plenty of talk about going reports in today's Racing Post.  It's amazing how many times the ground is officially altered after the first race...surely there can't be that much difference compared with before the first race?  Obviously with torrential rain, it is possible for the ground to change, but there are often cases where the courses alter the going report without any rain.  I don't see the point in trying to hide the proper state of the ground - the times of the races will always show the truth.

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I suppose that it was one of the biggest certainties of the season, but nevertheless it was good to see that Goldikova received the plaudits that her performances deserved by scooping the Cartier Older Horse award and Cartier Horse of the Year gong.

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I was amused to hear that one of the rails bookmakers had decided to attract a few more customers to his pitch by attaching a plastic fish to the top of his board, accompanied by the slogan "Plaice only" - now that is my type of humour!