The ups and downs of our wonderful sport were once again beautifully illustrated yesterday afternoon when Tomway was a costly failure at Wolverhampton.  Footballing star Wayne Rooney had enjoyed his first winner as an owner less than 24 hours before and his two year old colt had been well-backed into favouritism to add to that success.  However, he was unruly before the start (the horse that is!) and never threatened to land a blow in finishing fourth in the nine furlong nursery...back down to earth with a bang I guess.

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Clare_Balding

I think that it is good news for everyone involved that Channel 4 Racing have the rights to all televised racing on terestrial television and what is more, Channel 4 landed another coup yesterday when they announced the excellent Clare Balding as their lead presenter from 2013.  The major drawback is that John Francome has said that he will not be continuing in his role with the show, which is a shame as John always said what he thought (and often said it with a wicked sense of humour).  The only other negative as far as I can tell is that they haven't yet said that McCririck will not be appearing!

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It is yet another blank day on the jumping front, but at least there is some light at the end of the tunnel with some action due to take place at Stratford and Fontwell on Thursday.  The stable has some entries at Fontwell and I can't wait to see the National Hunt action again.  In the meantime we have five meetings this afternoon at Ffos Las, Lingfield, Kempton, Thirsk and Wolverhampton - it looks very tricky with some very tight handicaps that will take a bit of working out.

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With all of the excitement of Shergar Cup day at Ascot yesterday, this afternoon feels like something of an anti-climax with only Folkestone and Leicester hosting flat cards this afternoon.  However there is excellent action on the menu over in Ireland where The Curragh have no less than four Group races on their card, while there is a jumps meeting at Downpatrick where it looks to be a very competitive day's racing.

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Molly_Oscar_gallops_web

Another day and no jump racing!  Nevermind, there are plenty of meetings on the level to keep us entertained, including the Shergar Cup at Ascot as well as meetings from Haydock, Newmarket, Redcar, Ayr and Lingfield.  Oh, and don't forget that the Olympics are coming to a close this weekend!

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Shoegazer_gallops_Aug_web

Although there is no jump racing taking place this week, there is still plenty of work to do around the yard with all of the horses to be ridden out.  I have a couple of pictures from the gallops to share with you of Shoegazer, already a three times winner this season over fences and new recruit Kowloon as they completed solo pieces of work on the gallops.

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Grands_Crus_2_Selwyn

We had one runner at Kempton yesterday evening, On Khee in the apprentices' handicap over 1m3 1/2f.  She was unable to challenge and was ultimately a little disappointing.  The course at Kempton has come under fire in recent days from trainers and jockeys who claim that the surface (relaid over the summer) is unacceptable.  It is certainly riding on the slow side but then the official going has been described as standard/slow so I don't know what everyone was expecting.

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