Frost Kicking In

   Home Run with his Winning Jockeys

With the temperature plummeting we have unfortunately lost some of our jumping fixtures.  Leicester was lost to the elments yesterday as was today's card at Doncaster.  Kelso have been forced to abandon there meeting today this morning as has the all-weather fixture at Southwell!! All-weather racing is good as longs as the weather doesn't get too bad!!  So we are just left with Newbury and David has two runners.  Good Value is making a quick reappearance after running at Kempton on Saturday.  He was a little disappointing but we hope he can learn from the experience.  He is a 20/1 chance in the Racing Post which just shows how competitive the race is but he is an 82 rated flat performer so hopefully he will be able to transfer this ability over obstacles.  Home Run runs in the 3.15pm handicap hurdle and he is a 13/2 chance.  He is five pounds higher than his last winning mark but did run well at the track at the Hennessy meeting.  He was a bit of a naughty boy at the start at Sandown last time so hopefully he will behave and run okay.  We do have a jockey change on both of our runners.  Due to the abandonment of Doncaster, Tom Scu now switches to ride both horses.

There was some great racing at Leopardstown yesterday and what a super race we have to look forward to today with Hurricane Fly versus Jezki.  You would think maybe Hurricane Fly at 10 years old maybe past his best and Jezki at 6 years old should be coming into his prime but the older horse prevailed last time and it should be a fascinating race.  It was a particularly good day for Bryan Cooper in Ireland yesterday as he rode a treble.  I did back Lieutenant Colonel at 4/1 so that helped towards the Christmas bills!

There was a rare in Dartmouth last night as I bumped into a couple of David's owners, Steve and Jan Quinlan who own Virtuel D'oudon.  But that is not the rare event, Steve is the other Wigan supporter alongside chairman Dave Whelan!!  Talking of chairman's, what does the Crystal Palace expect, he sacks Neil Warnock and looks like he is going for Alan Pardew.  It seems to me like a big merry go round!  I think the next manager to go will be West Bromich Albion's boss.  For the 8 bottom teams in the Premiership at the moment it will be like winning the lottery if they manage to stay in the league.  Tonight we have Liverpool versus Swansea at 8pm.  I have had a small bet on Liverpool at 8/11.  Let's just hope it is not too cold for the pampered players!  Have a nice day.