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Rouban (IRE)
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- Saturday, 04 July 2015 11:44
- Written by Chelsea Eggleton
There are just two meetings taking place this afternoon - a flat card from Ayr and a jumps fixture from Market Rasen. The stable has no runners this afternoon and it looks like being a quiet day for the jockeys associated with the yard. There looks to be some good quality action over in Ireland at Limerick with the least valuable race on the card (a bumper) worth £10,000. It seems that the prize money in Ireland and France is much better than on these shores and makes me wonder why the likes of Gordon Elliott plots so many raids here. The winner of the lady's race at Market Rasen today picks up little over £2,000 - after the expenses incurred in getting the horse there, there will be little left over to celebrate!
Talking about lady's races, do you know who the last lady jockey was to have a winner at Royal Ascot? It was 28 years ago and the successful jockey was Gaye Kelleway. This year at the Royal meeting there were 444 runners and only two of them were ridden by lady jockeys (Hayley Turner and Amy Ryan) - what exactly do trainers have against female jockeys? I thought the exploits of Hayley Turner, Amy Ryan, Cathy Gannon and co. would have been more than enough to dispel the myths about their effectiveness.
In an ironic twist of fate the Injured Jockeys' annual holiday returned from Malta with one more injury than they left with when vice chairman Jonathan Powell slipped by the swimming pool and broke his leg! We hope he makes a rapid recovery.
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The British Grand Prix from Silverstone starts at 1pm and is televised live (for a change!) on BBC. According to the bookmakers it's a two horse race between Lewis Hamilton at 7/10 and Nico Rosberg at 7/4 - both drive for Mercedes. They tell me that you will see a lot more watching it on the television.
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Why on earth do Chelsea want Radamel Falcao? I know he is taking a £145,000 per week pay cut but he still looks poor value to me. Mourinho clearly thinks he will score plenty of goals even though he only hit the back of the net four times for Manchester United last season. I guess we will find out if Mourinho is a better manager than Van Gaal. Falcao is 5/1 to be Chelsea's top scorer.
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I see that Towcester are having trouble with the state of their greyhound track which has seen an increase in the number of injuries sustained. It is okay during the winter months, but during the course of the summer the ground is firmer. The solution seems obvious to me...more water needs to be added to the track - firm ground is no good to anybody.
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Apparently a pub in Claygate, Surrey claims to be the smallest in the world with space for just three punters. I'll have a squash!