Plenty Of Promise

Although winnerless, the runners from the weekend provided plenty of good runs and promise of better to come.  I thought that Rathealy posted a decent effort in the juvenile hurdle when runner-up to Arabian Revolution at Sandown - he looks like a winner waiting to happen and could be the type for handicaps later on.  Meanwhile Classical Art did not seem to handle the ground and would appear to what conditions less testing than these.  Meanwhile Balgarry returned to form with a very good second in the handicap hurdle, giving lumps of weight away to the bulk of his rivals while Sail By The Sea finished third yesterday in a hot looking novices' chase on his first start over fences - he can only improve for the experience and is another who should be winning before long.

It is a quiet start to the week for the stable - there are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps action from Musselburgh and Lingfield as well as an all-weather flat fixture from Wolverhampton.  The yard has no runners this afternoon.

I was watching the action from Plumpton yesterday from the comfort of my armchair and the most impressive winner of the day was undoubtedly Caracci Apache who carried 11-9 to victory in the novices' hurdle qualifier and won in a canter.  He looks very much one to keep on the right side of.  Over in Ireland there was a big surprise when Cheltenham Festival Neptune Hurdle favourite Tell Us More was beaten at Naas by unfancied 33/1 stablemate McKinley.  You are always going to come in for stick in the betting shops when that sort of result crops up and punter were wanting trainer Willie Mullins to tell them more after that!  One to avoid at all costs would appear to be the Gordon Elliott trained Fort Smith who conspired to get himself beaten at odds of 1/7 in the maiden hurdle on the same card - he looks like a real monkey and it will be fascinating to see what the trainer does with this one.

I see that fashion guru Gok Wan will be at Liverpool for the Grand National to tell us all about the orange ladies fashions. It would be better to have a boxing referee to sort out the fights between the Scouse girls!  I love Aintree and can only imagine it is akin to landing on the moon - you don't half see some funny sights!

After the conclusion of the world darts last night, guess what?  We have the BDO world darts from Lakeside!  I haven't heard of most of the players in the BDO - what I would like to know is why on earth they cannot unify the championships and play together at the Ally Pally for the big prize money?  How on earth can they have any credibility when there is more than one world championship?

I have just heard about artist Anna Mazek who creates luminous paintings by mixing her colours with vodka.  Her exhibition in Exeter has created something of a stir with many visitors describing her work as 'intoxicating!'  Have a nice day...