Marvellous Monetaire!

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with a jumps card from Plumpton and two all-weather flat fixtures from Kempton and Wolverhampton.  The stable enjoyed another nice winner at the weekend when Monetaire was successful in the 2m1f handicap chase at Newbury on Saturday under Tom Scudamore.  He ran an eye-catching race on his debut for the stable at Cheltenham on his previous start and was winning here from a mark of 126.  He looks as though he can still rate higher yet and will stay further too.  Tom Scu finished up as top jockey at the Hennessy meetings with four winners which was a nice bonus for him as he didn't even know there was such an award - he doesn't have to pay for RUK now for the next twelve months!

I was in the betting shop at the weekend and was subjected to the usual banter.  One of the punters approached me and asked, "In which sport can you break the rules and still win?" I knew what he was getting at - Leighton Aspell was given a seven day whip ban and handed an £1,800 fine for his ride aboard Hennessy winner Many Clouds.  The punter in question suggested that if the jockey had not broken the rules, the horse would not have won...I'm afraid he makes a valid point.

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It was a good weekend for the six London Premiership football clubs with none of them losing.  Meanwhile Manchester City returned to form by battering Southampton 3-0 away from home.  Even so, Southampton are still are scarcely believable third in the league, although this result shows they still have work to do to maintain that position.  There seems to be a big difference between Chelsea, Manchester City and the remainder of the Premier League.

Things could be about to get messy at Liverpool with Steven Gerard, probably their greatest ever player (and I say that with the greatest respect to Kenny Dalgleish).  There are suggestions that the Liverpool skipper could be heading over to America to play and that would be a tremendous shame.

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Apparently oil prices are at their lowest for five years and us consumers may be rewarded with the odd penny or two off a litre of fuel at the pumps.  Even so, I recently topped up my car with oil and it still seemed fairly pricey to me!  By the time the reduction is passed on to us, the price is normally on the way back up again.  Someone is making a killing out of this (I would suggest the government through taxation) after all, it costs us over twice as much as our cousins over in America to fill up our cars - how is that right?

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A herd of goats rampaging around Llandudno, North Wales have been put on contraceptive pill to cut their numbers...no kidding!  I'm sorry, they get worse it is true!  Have a nice day...