Weekend Double

The stable enjoyed another very good weekend and despite only having three runners at Chepstow (two of them in the Pertemps qualifier) they all ran crackers as we had two winners and a narrow runner-up.  Conditional jockey Kieron Edgar enjoyed a great double when Virtuel d'Oudon stayed on well to just catch Katkeau in the shadow of the post, while Ballywilliam was a convincing winner of the bumper and looks yet another very useful prospect for the stable.  What a star Virtuel d'Oudon (pictured above) has been since David picked him up reasonably from the sales, winning five races and still appearing to be on the upgrade.  I went out with his owner Steve in Dartmouth last night and I reckon I must have heard about the race ten times, I almost feel like I rode the horse myself!  Of course, I am only joking and think that it is fantastic that we have such a group of enthusiastic owners attached to the stable.  Virtuel d'Oudon could now go for the final of the series at the Cheltenham Festival next month - a runner at the Festival has to be every owners dream.

Meanwhile, stablemate Katkeau looks like a winner waiting to happen again.  He had disappointed a couple of times having won on his reappearance at Cheltenham in November following a lengthy absence.  He is another for whom Cheltenham is very much on the radar.

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps meetings at Ayr and Plumpton (which gets the go-ahead following an early morning inspection) and an all-weather flat fixture from Wolverhampton.  The stable has one runner at Plumpton, Rathealy who contests the handicap hurdle - he would need to improve on his latest outing at Taunton, although his previous start at Sandown reads well enough.  It looks as though Sirop de Menthe could be the one to beat if turned out again quickly - he really should have won yesterday at Fontwell but jockey Lucy Gardner thought she had to go around again, so well was her mount travelling.  She finished second and was handed a 14 day ban, while the horse looks very well-treated if in the same form.

A P McCoy was in unstoppable form at Southwell yesterday as he booted home another couple of winners to take his seasonal tally to 213 at a quite unbelievable 30% strike rate.  Richard Johnson comes next on 126 winners, closely followed by Tom Scu who is having an amazing season himself with 119.  Meanwhile David continues to lead the trainers standings numerically with 98 winners...roll on Cheltenham!

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It would seem that Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has lost the plot.  He had a right go at the referees and the FA - the world seems to be against him according to himself!

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Isn't it about time that television was used to sort out the problem of diving in professional football?  Harry Kane was awarded a penalty that earned Spurs a 2-2 draw against my beloved West Ham but even allowing for my obvious bias, it was a blatant dive.  Plenty of other sports have embraced replay technology and for the life of me I don't know why football has yet to implement it.

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Sweet loving MP's and peers consume on average 100,000 chocolate bars and packets of sweets during the course of a year in Westminster.  I wonder if they could sweeten up the voters ahead of the this year's General Election?!