- Saturday, 23 April 2011 07:04
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
It is the offical end of the National Hunt jumps season today at Sandown. AP wins the Champion jockey title for the 16th year in a row, well done champ! Just think of poor Richard Johnson, I don't mean poor in money terms as Richard would certainly be worth a few quid but I mean poor has he has been runner up to AP in the title race on 13 occasions. Johnson must be wondering if AP will ever retire as just to win the title once would be good on his CV and much deserved. He is a brilliant jockey and in any other era he would have been a fantastic multiple champion I am sure. Anyway the jumps season starts all over again tomorrow and Richard and all the other jockeys will be travelling all over the country chasing winners!
- Friday, 22 April 2011 06:48
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
It's Good Friday and there is no racing on, but at least for racing fanatics who are missing their fix, there is the Lambourn Open Day today and most of the trainers will be flinging their doors open to the public from 9am this morning. Organisers are expecting between seven and ten thousand people to attend this annual fundraiser - I see that John Francome will be joining A P McCoy in the show jumping event that takes place in the afternoon. At Francome's age you would think that he would be finding something less dangerous to do with his spare time! There will also be a demonstration of the air track bed that teaches jockeys how to fall as safely as possible. Noel Fehily is one of the jockeys participating in the demonstration - he could probably have done with a few lessons back along!
- Thursday, 21 April 2011 07:06
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
Where has all the common sense gone? Darryl Holland failed to weigh-in after finishing fourth at Southwell yesterday afternoon and was consequently handed a four day ban which rules him out of the Chester Cup meeting next month. Fair enough I hear you say, but dig a little deeper and you will realise that with only nine runners, it wouldn't affect betting on the race, and furthermore there was no prizemoney for the fourth horse - so where is the problem? Surely a slap on the wrist would have sufficed rather than putting him on the sidelines for four days - the world has gone mad!
- Wednesday, 20 April 2011 07:47
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
I am pleased to report that Tom Scudamore underwent successful surgery on his dislocated shoulder on Monday afternoon. Unfortunately the Pond House stable jockey is still likely to face a spell on the sidelines of around four months as his arm recuperates following a fall from the David Bridgwater trained The Giant Bolster at Aintree's Grand National meeting. I am sure that Tom will be climbing the walls (figuratively speaking!), but at least this is a positive piece of news.
- Tuesday, 19 April 2011 14:08
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
To follow, an open letter to British Telecom from Carol Pipe - I am sure many of you will know where we are coming from!:
19th April 2011
Dear whoever the faceless wonder is that is (in charge of) running BT,
This seems to be the only way that I may be able to speak to anyone who knows how BT works (or on this occasion, doesn’t).
I won’t bore you with all of the details, so will give you the abridged version…I spoke with one of your business advisors about how we could reduce the cost of our business telephone charges. We agreed to disconnect one of our defunct lines, and to sign up to a two year deal with reduced charges – all very good.
- Tuesday, 19 April 2011 06:51
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
As owner Sarah Ling said in the Racing Post, "You wait for a bus and they all come along together!" She was of course referring to her horse Laustra Bad, who was winning his second race within the space of a month having previously endured a losing run stretching back almost four years. The handicapper reacted by putting him up by 10lbs for that last success and I must admit, I thought that was harsh. I have to put my hands up and say that he was right after our eight year old bolted up again yesterday from his revised mark - he received a positive ride from our rapidly improving conditional jockey Conor O'Farrell to win by ten lengths. It was a good bit of placement from David who found a terrible race for him, even so he will probably have to turn him out again under a penalty as the handicapper is bound to take a dim view.
- Monday, 18 April 2011 07:01
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
What a great leveller this sport of ours is...just look at poor little Willie Twiston-Davies for proof. Only last month the sixteen year old jock was on the floor in tears having just parted company with hot favourite Baby Run in the Foxhunters at the Cheltenham Festival with the race seemingly at his mercy. Three weeks later he was on top of the world having atoned for that misfortune by landing the Aintree equivalent aboard the same horse. Yesterday the poor lad broke his leg in a fall at Stratford and will need surgery to help repair it. He says, "It's my first serious injury and I'll need to have an operation. I'm in pain but it's got to be done". The lad is probably still doing a paper round, yet he still sounds a lot braver than me!
