Runners At 4 Meetings

It looks like being a busy day with five meetings taking place this afternoon and the stable having runners at most of them.  The action comes from Aintree, Sandown, Chepstow and Wetherby over the sticks, while there is also an all-weather flat card from Wolverhampton.  The stable has two runners in the Becher Chase over the Grand National fences at Aintree; Our Father (picture above, Conor O'Farrell) and The Package (Tom Scudamore) - they both have experience over these fences and can go well, although the fact that the bookies go 12/1 the field tells you all you need to know about how competitive this race is.  Poole Master is our other runner at Aintree and he takes in the 2m5f chase, also over the National fences at 3.15pm.

Bygones Sovereign and Amigo are our runners at Chepstow this afternoon and Michael Heard claims a handy 7lbs off the former, while Hadden Frost partners Amigo in the Welsh National Trial.  Meanwhile Azza and Home Run (both partnered by Kieron Edgar) are our runners at Sandown, while we also have a rare runner at Wolverhampton on the all-weather - Unanimité takes in a very tight little handicap there and it will be interesting to see how he gets on on this return to the level under William Twiston-Davies.  As you can imagine, the logistics of getting horses to four race meetings on the same day up and down the country is not always easy, so let's hope our efforts don't go unrewarded!

Richard Johnson was on the receiving end of a twelve day ban for taking the wrong course in the Devon Marathon at Exeter yesterday afternoon.  Talk about bad timing, the beleaguered jockey who had been in such fine form in the weeks leading up to yesterday is participating in a Racing Post Twitter question & answer session on Monday evening.  I wonder what the main topic of conversation is going to be?!  He will be able to answer a few more questions now as he has a few days to spare!  I do feel a little sorry for Richard Johnson, there were problems with the low sun and other fences were dolled off meaning only 14 of the 22 fences were jumped.  It has to be made clearer for jockeys where the course goes so these incidents cannot keep happening.

Talking of the low sun, I remember Ron Atkins riding one for Martin and coming back in after a disappointing performance saying that he was blinded by the sun reflecting off of the water jump...I always thought that Ron was having us on!

Aintree should be applauded for their initiative ahead of today's meeting.  There is free admission and all 42,000 tickets have gone - the stalls holders will love this and I am sure the bars will have record takings and the track deserves to do very well.  I wonder how many of the infamous Liverpool 'ladies' will have their summer outfits from National Day on this afternoon?!

We were all saddened to learn of the passing of leading owner Paul Green at the age of 72.  Paul had some fantastic horses at the stable down the years including Cheltenham Festival winners Unsinkable Boxer, Hors La Loi III and Ascot Gold Cup runner-up Tyrone Bridge.  The most famous of all though was undoubtedly Carvill's Hill and I can still remember him routing a good field under top-weight in the Welsh National - to this day it is still one of the finest performances I have seen on the racecourse.  Our thoughts are with Paul's family at this sad time.

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I will be looking forward to a bit of football action this weekend and will be having a little interest on Manchester City at 8/15, Liverpool at 8/15 and Spurs at 8/13.

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I could barely believe that a man in Newport, South Wales tried to hold up a convenience store with a potato peeler.  Police said that he had had his chips!  Have a nice day...