Summer Break, Day 5

Day five of our Summer sabbatical and there are five meetings taking place on the level this afternoon.  The action takes place at Musselburgh, Brighton, Lingfield, Newmarket and Haydock.  It is a fairly nondescript sort of a day with a class 2 handicap from Musselburgh the highlight of the day - not great for a Friday afternoon I am sure you will agree.  Meanwhile over in Ireland there is an evening meeting on the level from Tipperary which has attracted some competitive racing, including a couple of Listed races.

I was sorry to hear that one of my television heroes passed away yesterday at the age of 90.  I am talking about George Cole who starred as Arthur Daley in the ITV series 'Minder'.  As far as I am concerned he was Minder, the show just would not have worked without him.  I remember in the 1990's he had a good horse with Patrick Haslam called Huso that won seven races on the flat and another of my heroes, Lester Piggott was on board for one of them.  George Cole was a tremendous character and I have known a few Arthur Daley's over the years from my time in the East End...real-life duckers and divers!

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If there is one country in the world you would like to beat at sport it is Australia.  They are the world's biggest gloaters and it was nice to see them brought down to earth by a mesmerizing spell of bowling by Stuart Broad yesterday as they were bowled out in their first innings at Trent Bridge for just 60 runs.  Broad finished with the incredible figures of 8 wickets for just 15 runs, while Joe Root is unbeaten on 124 as England moved 214 runs ahead with six wickets in hand.  Oliver who works in the yard has tickets for the third day, although I'm not quite sure how much play he is going to see!  I wouldn't want to be one of the Australian squad when they get home - they will certainly get some stick!  This has to be one of the worst Australian teams of all time, but in fairness, who cares?!

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How can the athletics board allow Russia to send ex-world champion Tatyana Tomashova to the world championships in Beijing later this month?  She was banned for two years in 2008, while another Russian athlete Anastasiyn Bazayreva who has also been named in a new probe into violations, will also go to China.  Athletics is a laughing stock at present and they need to get their house in order quickly.  I stick by my hard line opinion of banning drugs cheats for life - they know what they are doing.

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Did you know that three hundred and fifteen entries in Websters 1996 English dictionary were misspelled?!

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