Weekend Jottings!

After a couple of busy days over the festive period, things return to some form of normality today as there are just two National Hunt cards from Leicester and Catterick and an all-weather flat meeting from Lingfield.  Let's hope that the snow that has hit the Midlands has cleared in time for racing to go ahead.  The stable runs Bladoun (pictured above) at Leicester this afternoon - our six year old won last time out and is stable jockey Tom Scudamore's only ride of the day.  You know what they say about jockeys travelling to race meetings for just one ride...I don't know who says it, but let's hope they are right!

Ladbrokes are supporting the eight race all-weather card on the polytrack at Lingfield and they have put up some excellent prize money so it would be great if they are rewarded with a good turnout.  I have to be honest though, all-weather racing has never seemed to draw big crowds and I reckon it is going to be fairly chilly. 

I see that A P McCoy has elected to stay in Ireland today to ride in the Grade One Lexus Chase at Leopardstown - he has five other mounts on the card and I would be very surprised if he didn't boot home a winner or two.

Following the Winter Festival at Kempton, I came to wondering why the track cannot lay some sort of turf across the track during jump fixtures rather than having to keep galloping over the all-weather. It must be a strain on the horses legs to go from heavy turf to a quicker all-weather surface and then back again? Just a thought...

*****

I turned off my phone yesterday after West Ham lost to Chelsea.  Guess what?  By the time I switched my phone back on again I had 52 missed calls!  I reckon most of them were from David who was looking to have a Christmas gloat.  I am a terrible loser, although I love to dish it out to others!  To me it looked as though West Ham played a team who were trying desperately to earn a draw.  I did buy a bit of money on Manchester United at 4/11 however - it means that I will be able to buy a round at Wetherspoons...that's how much I made!

There is a good match today between Spurs and Manchester United at 12 noon on BT Sport, while the match (or battle) of the day could be between QPR and Crystal Palace.  This is a real six pointer and I will be siding with QPR, Stoke and Aston Villa.

I thought that the picture of the weekend was Alex Bruce hugging his dad after Hull beat Sunderland - it looks like Steve can't take those heavy tackles from behind anymore.