One At Taunton Today!

Today there are three meetings taking place with two jumps cards from Taunton and Towcester as well as an all-weather flat fixture for Wolverhampton.  The stable has just the one runner today; Bella who competes in the mares' novices' hurdle.  Our filly fell at the track last time out when it looked as though she would play a hand in the finish - the bookmakers have her priced up as an 11/4 chance and in receipt of weight from all her rivals, she should run well under Tom Scudamore.  Can you believe that Wolverhampton are allowed to get away with £32,000 in prize money for their eight race card?  The trouble is, as long as owners are willing to run for peanuts, the courses will keep pushing their luck.

I thought that Amigo ran a cracker at the weekend to finish runner-up at Newbury on Saturday when beaten only a neck by Carruthers and there are surely races to be won with him before too long.  Meanwhile Twentytwo's Taken probably travelled a bit too well to last home in the competitive mares' hurdle - she was very keen once again and when learning to settle better there will be some nice races in her.

You have to feel sorry for poor Barry Geraghty who will miss the Grand National meeting after sustaining a hairline fracture to his left tibia in a fall at Downpatrick yesterday.  To be a jockey must be one of the hardest jobs of all - they regularly starve themselves to ride at a light weight and risk life and limb every time they get aboard a horse.  Statistically they are likely to take a fall every seven rides and when you are one of the leading jockeys you are getting a lot of rides.

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What on earth was Steven Gerrard thinking of in Liverpool's match against Manchester United at the weekend?  He stamped on Ander Herrera after being on the pitch for just 38 seconds - it meant that he had blown it for his team as far as Liverpool were concerned, in fact they played very well with just ten men.  I cannot believe that Liverpool boss Brendan Rogers is refusing to blame him for the incident, saying that it was big of Gerrard to come out and apologise for the incident.  Personally, I thought he had little choice as it was his actions that caused Liverpool to be reduced to ten men!  David Moyes said, "this year I'd have to say is probably the poorest Premier League I've seen in a long time" and I would have to say that I agree with him - don't forget, every English team is out of Europe and the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid look completely different class.

Meanwhile there was yet another cock-up by the referee after he sent off the wrong person in Manchester City's match against West Brom.  Surely it is about time that replay technology was introduced to sort out this sort of mess - it just makes the League looked extremely unprofessional.

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Apparently a German study has concluded that a nap of 45-60 minutes can boost people's memory retrieval five fold...I should have the best memory in the world!

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