Chepstow Double

It was an excellent day for the stable yesterday when we landed a double at Chepstow with our only two runners.  Tullyesker Hill (pictured above) bolted up in the three mile handicap hurdle with Tom Scudamore easing him down on the run-in - he is only a five year old and there is still the possibility of further improvement from him.  Herbert Park (pictured below) completed the brace by landing the closing bumper in workmanlike fashion, beating the well-backed point-to-point winner Winter Walk.  He looks like a promising staying hurdler in the making and David would appear to have another nice young prospect on his hands.

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with three fixtures over the sticks at Fakenham, Musselburgh and Towcester as well as a flat card on the all-weather at Wolverhampton.  The stable has just one runner today; Decoy who takes in 2.40pm race at Towcester.  The Racing Post make our charge a 13/2 chance and while he has the ability to win a race of this nature, you couldn't be sure that he will reproduce his form of a couple of outings ago when successful at Newton Abbot.  Mr David Noonan takes the mount this afternoon and claims a handy 7lbs off his back.

I'm sure he wouldn't want pity from anybody, but I see that Jamie Moore picked up £300 for his winner at Chepstow yesterday while his brother Ryan earned £300,000 for winning in Australia.  Jamie went on to say that his brother would probably be the happier of the pair too...he certainly has a talent for stating the obvious!  Having said that, historically Ryan hasn't always looked to be the most cheerful character in the weighing room.

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I see that Real Madrid's Christiano Ronaldo received the golden boot for a third time, so now he has a boot for each foot!  As far as I am concerned he is the best footballer in the world by a mile - I bet Manchester United wished they had not let him go.

Meanwhile, Manchester City managed to lose their European match against CSKA at home and are now bottom of their division.  How can they lose a match like that?  The ref had a stinking game, sending two City players off, while he should have sent a CSKA player off.  I don't understand how some of these supposedly top teams can become second-rate so quickly.

Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock was fined £9,000 for having a go at referee Craig Dawson - it begs the question, is the ref above making mistakes?  Clearly the answer is no - you only had to watch Manchester City last night to realise that!

There are a few more European matches tonight and I was tempted to have a little go on Dynamo Moscow at 4/9, Napoli at 2/5 and Seville at 3/10.  Everton also play this evening live on ITV4 and I reckon this one has draw written all over it.

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I see that shoplifter James Squire was nicked after getting caught in a prickly hedge in Swansea.  The tea leaf had tried to make off with a massive quantity of deodourant- I wonder if police sniffed him out?  Having said that, if the supermarket had the 'right guard' he would never even have made it out of the front door!