Four Newbury Runners

Today there are four meetings taking place with two jumps cards from Ludlow and Newbury and a couple of all-weather flat cards from Lingfield and Kempton.  David is off to Newbury today where the stable has four runners; Gevrey Chambertin, Captainofindustry, Sivron and Vayland.  Gevrey Chambertin is an interesting prospect - he is certainly weighted to go well over the larger obstacles (his hurdle mark is currently 18lbs higher) although he is yet to reproduce that sort of performance so far over fences.  Meanwhile impressive Hexham bumper winner Vayland makes his debut for the stable in the novice hurdle and he looks like an exciting prospect.  Tom Scudamore rides him and Gevrey Chambertin as well as Captainofindustry, while Conor O'Farrell is aboard our other runner Sivron.

I know it is unusual, but I am pleased to report that common sense has actually prevailed!  I am referring to the Turf Club Appeal Panel in Ireland who reduced the ban on jockeys Davy Russell and Phillip Enright to just two days after Russell 'borrowed' Enright's whip mid-race at Clonmel on 4th December.  These panels do contain some humans after all!

There has been plenty said about the small field sizes that racing is currently attracting and the BHA went as far as to say that these races are a threat to the sport's integrity.  I was interested to hear fellow trainer Donald McCain's views on the small fields and he appeared to put the blame at the door of the race planning department when he suggested that he had plenty of horses to run but nowhere to run them.  On January 11th at Kelso there were three chases - a mares race, a hunter chase and a veterans chase...certainly nothing for your everyday handicap chaser...he could well have a point.  There is also the undeniable problem that there are fewer horses in training while there are more fixtures and races than ever before - you don't need to be a rocket scientist to realise that those two statistics are not going to lead to big fields.  It seems so simple - fewer fixtures for better prize money, another problem sorted by Barnes Consultants Unlimited!  I would be happy to help in one of these 'think tanks' if the BHA want to get in touch with me.

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Looking at the teams they turned out last night, it would appear that Chelsea are taking the Capital One Cup quite seriously.  They played a decent side as they beat Derby to progress to the next round.  Meanwhile Liverpool have a tricky match tonight as they take on in-form Bournemouth.  If Liverpool do not get a result I can see manager Brendan Rogers position becoming even more uncomfortable.

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If Alastair Cook was not England cricket captain he would struggle to get into our one-day side at present.  I am a big fan of Cook but the team lost again yesterday and the skipper is looking down in the dumps.  What they really need at the moment is someone who is going to wind the players up...I reckon I could be quite good at that, or better still MCP!