Royal Ascot Day One

It is the first day of the Royal meeting and there are five meetings taking place in total with flat meetings from Royal Ascot, Thirsk, Beverley and Brighton as well as a National Hunt card from Stratford.  Royal Ascot has £1,635,000 in prize money while Brighton are offering the heady sum of £31,000!  There are plenty of jumps trainers with runners in the Ascot Stakes - 2m4f handicap on the level.  In fact eleven of the twenty runners are trained by handlers more commonly associated with the National Hunt game.  Unusually, David (who won the race with Junior in 2010) isn't represented this year, although I am sure he will back for another go in twelve months time.  The Windsor Castle is a 27 runner race over the minimum distance of five furlongs - it should certainly be exciting for the spectators although it is a nightmare for commentators and runners will certainly need a slice of luck to prevail.

This afternoon the Queen will unveil a statue of Frankel, the Sir Henry Cecil trained wonder horse who was unbeaten in fourteen starts, including five times at Ascot.  A fantastic tribute to the greatest horse of our time.  By the way, did anybody see the documentary about him on Channel 4 on Saturday night?  A great program that I would urge anyone to take a look at if they can find it online.

I always keep a look out for top jockeys that are not engaged at the big meetings.  Sure, it could be that their agents are just useless and unable to get anything for them at the main meeting of the day, although in this instance I prefer to think that Graham Lee has headed off to Beverley as he has a particularly strong book of rides - he looks sure to ride some winners today.

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The course where they are planning to have the US Open would appear to be an absolute brute!  It is called Chambers Bay and competitors will certainly have to plan their way around the eighteen holes.  I reckon there will be some high scores and world number one Rory McIlroy has drifted out to 15/2.  Justin Rose is normally fairly dependable and hits the ball straight so he could be worth an interest at odds of around 20/1.  I see that Tiger Woods' kids bought him an early Fathers' Day present - a set of head covers.  Let's hope they are around for the last couple of rounds - it's not a Tiger Woods type of course...you need to hit the ball straight!

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There is a great photograph of Arsene Wenger on holiday in Marrakech as he was caught wearing the world's worst tee-shirt.  It was covered in pictures of a local comedian - I'm not sure how many good Moroccan comedians are about.  Talking of football, a great sportsman knows when it is time to call it a day so perhaps somebody should tell Robin Van Persie.  He scored just 10 goals last season, while Harry Kane scored 31.

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Did you know that golf is the only sport that has ever been played on the moon?  It must have been after one of Tiger's tee shots!  Have a nice day...

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