Art Attacks At Taunton!

The stable enjoyed it's 116th winner of the season last night at Taunton when Classical Art ran out the comfortable winner of the handicap hurdle under conditional jockey Michael Heard.  This was Michael's eleventh winner of the season and he has improved in leaps and bounds this season and is excellent value for his 7lbs claim.  Meanwhile, over at Ffos Las Pilgrim's Bay finished third in the bumper having looked the likeliest winner two furlongs out.  He drifted badly and almost came to a complete stop before running on again - he clearly has plenty of ability although I would imagine that David will be reaching for the headgear sooner rather than later.

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with three flat cards from Beverley, Bath and Southwell as well as National Hunt action from Perth and Warwick.  Although the stable doesn't have any runners today, Tom Scudamore makes the journey to Warwick where he has picked up five outside rides.

Tom Scu Watch...following a double at Ffos Las last night, Tom has moved onto 149 winners for the season and has edged back ahead of Richard Johnson into a clear second in the jockeys' standings.  He now needs one more winner with three racing days left to become only the fifth jockey to ride 150 winners in a season.

Don't forget to pick up a copy of the Racing Post today as there is a very good article about A P McCoy covering the time he left Pond House to take up his retainer with J P McManus.  There is a great quote that says, "To move on we have to leave something of ourselves behind".  The champ will be taking his final mounts at Sandown on Saturday and the place will be a complete sell-out and totally manic.  I will definitely be there and I am privileged to have been invited to his party that evening.  I am really looking forward to paying my respects to the greatest jockey we will ever see and undoubtedly one of the finest sportsmen of all time.

I see that David is advertising for a Head Lad/Barn Leader in today's Racing Post.  That sounds like a really good opportunity for somebody to join one of the most successful teams in jumps racing...if only I were a couple of years younger!  Details can be found on the recruitment page of David's website, so if you are interested I would recommend an early response - jobs such as these do not come up very often.

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Aston Villa stack Jack Grealish has joined the 'Hippy Crack' Hall Of Shame.  The rate these players are reaching for the balloons, soon they will have a team of eleven dopes!  Is life really that boring for these young players that they have to mess around with this sort of thing?  I must come from a different planet!

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Cook and Trott have put on 74 so far and this looks like the sort of docile wicket where they should be recording centuries and keeping the knockers at bay, including myself!

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Did you know that some Amazonian tribes like to barbecue tarantulas and eat them.  Apparently they taste like prawns...I will have to tell Martin about that!  I am sure he must hold some sort of world record for prawn eating!

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