Horses for Sale
- Wednesday, 17 June 2015 07:37
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
There are five meetings taking place this afternoon. The obvious headline card is the second day from Royal Ascot and they are ably supported by flat cards from Hamilton, Chelmsford City and Ripon while there is National Hunt action from Uttoxeter. The stable has four runners at Uttoxeter this afternoon, Susie Sheep, Our Chief, Lady Of Longstone and Pigrims Bay. Susie Sheep is a winning point-to-pointer who makes her debut over the larger obstacles this afternoon, while Our Chief takes a step up in trip and though he needs to improve to figure in this, he has shown enough promise to suggest that a race of this nature is not beyond him, while Lady Of Longstone (pictured above) has run two excellent races of late and should go well once again despite being another 3lbs higher than when runner-up at Ffos Las last time. Pilgrims Bay is something of an unknown quantity as he appears to have bundles of talent and would go close if he could channel that ability properly.
What a great day's racing it was at Royal Ascot yesterday and I was delighted to have a 6/1 winner, although the one that was beaten a short head and a neck into third made the difference between a good day and a great day! It just goes to show how competitive the racing has become at all of these big meetings - your horse can run a massive personal best and still not win! Ryan Moore won the last three races on the card to shoot to the top of the jockeys' standings for the meeting and he already looks to have that title in the bag with bookmakers offering 1/12 that he ends the five day meet as top rider.
I hope that someone took a picture of David in his top hat and tails yesterday - surely a sight to behold! I reckon he must stand seven feet tall in his topper and you would have to feel sorry for the people stood behind him in the stands!
Martin is currently reading an excellent book by former Steward of the Jockey Club, Christopher Hall entitled "Horse Welfare, Use Not Abuse" (pictured right). Martin contributed to some of the content in the book which is dedicated to the protection of horses, ponies and donkeys. He says that it is well worth a read and can be bought online via Amazon...
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Onto football and I would love someone to explain to me why champions Chelsea are interested in Radamel Falcao who was a complete failure during his time with Manchester United. I can understand their interest in Charlie Austin, but Falcao never.
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How on earth did Scotland manage to lose to Brazil in their Snooker World Cup match? The Jocks managed to lose 3-2 despite having John Higgins and Stephen Maguire on their team - can you name me a Brazilian snooker player? They need to beat Belgium, Malaysia and Hong Kong to qualify now and that is clearly no sure thing.
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Talking of upsets, what about Rafa Nadal getting beaten in the first round of the Queen's Club tennis tournament in Eastbourne yesterday? He was beaten by the world number 79 Alexandra Dolgopolov. Nadal has been a great player during his career but now at the age of 29(!) could he be on the downgrade. As I was saying yesterday, all of the great champions know when to call it a day, I wonder if there will be any developments on this front should he perform poorly again at Wimbledon?
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With the US Open golf coming up, the bookies are offering bets on some of the 3 ball action. Justin Rose tees off at 10.17am tomorrow and is 13/8, while Phil Mickelson at 11/10 and Ricky Fowler at 6/5 look worth including in a little treble (prices are with Hills).
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Did you know that the word 'karaoke' means empty orchestra. Lots of my mates on the karaoke machine sound like they have an empty orchestra backing them!
