Rouge At Rasen

There is some great action this afternoon with five meetings from Royal Ascot, Redcar, Newmarket, Goodwood and a jumps card at Market Rasen.  The stable runs exciting novice chaser Vieux Lion Rouge at Market Rasen and our six year old has to concede weight all round after his chase debut success at Towcester.  There is not much strength in depth, although John Ferguson's Aalim was useful over timber and is clearly the biggest danger.  We also run Junior Package in the bumper at 5.45pm - he is making his first ever start on the racecourse today and is the Racing Post's 13/8 favourite, largely due to breeding I would suggest.  He works okay at home and we look to have two decent chances this afternoon - Tom Scudamore is aboard them both.

Both of our runners at Ffos Las performed creditably last night with Houston Dynimo finishing a close third under top weight in the handicap chase - he looks capable of winning again before too long, while Western Diva finished fourth in the handicap hurdle.

Picking winners at Royal Ascot this year is a piece of cake...all you have to do is back Ryan Moore!  The steely faced jockey has won eight races at a 44% strike rate and furthermore he looks to have a good book of rides today, five in fact.  Even so, I am going to buck the trend in the Queen's Vase and desert the Ryan Moore ridden jolly in favour of stablemate Bantry Bay ridden by Joseph O'Brien.  With stamina far from guaranteed for any of these runners, he looks worth a punt at odds of around 5/1.

Newmarket have a star attraction this evening and I am not just talking about the racing!  The lovely Kylie Minogue plays there this evening after racing and I'm sure her appearance will have swollen the crowd!  The trouble is tickets are long gone having sold out within the hour of them going on sale.  The Post have come up with the old chestnut "You Should Be So Lucky!" - I hope they have her on an elevated stage, otherwise the audience are going to struggle to see the diminutive Aussie!  She would have no problem riding at 7 stone!

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I see that Mo Farrah was just one of sixty-six British athletes to miss a drugs test in the build-up to the London Olympics in 2012.  I find it difficult to believe that all of them failed to hear their door bell ring...something sounds a bit dopey to me!

Talking of athletes, I was saddened to see that legendary Australian runner Ron Clarke died this week at the age of 78.  Believe it or not I ran against him in the old series of Superstars, just don't ask me how I got on!  Ron was a really nice guy and a wonderful athlete.

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I was watching the US Open golf last night and the first thing that occurred to me was what colour are those greens?!  They obviously played better than they looked as veteran Colin Montgomerie shot a round of 69 - he seems to be playing as well as ever, even at his age.

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Finally, did you know that toilet paper was invented in New York in 1857...the inventor had nothing to go on!

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