Scu Opts For Dynaste

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps action from Ascot and Haydock as well as a cheap all-weather flat card from Wolverhampton where they are offering a miserly £39,000 in prize money across their eight race card.  Our jockeys continued in good form yesterday with Tom Scudamore riding a winner at Market Rasen and David Noonan riding a winner at Wincanton.  It was more of a steering job for David as his task aboard the Anthony Honeyball trained Creswell Breeze was made considerably easier by Noel Fehily unseating from the odds-on favourite.  David has now ridden 20 winners (18 of them this season) and his claim will drop to 5lbs after the weekend.

I see that Tom Scudamore has chosen to partner Dynaste in the Betfair Chase at Haydock tomorrow which means Conor O'Farrell will come in for an excellent spare ride aboard Ballynagour.  There was very little between them in the Charlie Hall Chase and let's hope they both perform creditably once again.  It should certainly be an exciting contest with the likes of Cue Card and Silviniaco Conti in opposition.

Talking of Haydock, they have put on some good prize money today yet they are rewarded with only three runner fields in their 1.20pm and 2.30pm races.  It never ceases to amaze me that there is no shortage of people wanting to compete for peanuts on the all-weather, yet when there is good prize money on offer on the turf, there is a dearth of runners.  Clearly something is wrong somewhere.

I see that it is film star Bo Derek's 59th birthday today.  Bo is a member of the California Horse Racing Board - can you imagine having her as a steward?  There would be literally hundreds of enquiries!  When I attended a stewards enquiry none of them looked like Bo Derek, more like Bo Diddley to be honest!

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Kevin Pietersen is sticking his nose back in it again with the England cricket selectors.  He says that "It is absolutely ridiculous, you have to take Ian Bell for his experience".  If you look at Bell's form this year, he is averaging less than 26 and that is just not good enough for a top batsman.  I hate to say it, but for once I have to agree with the selectors.

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Who runs the goblin hospital?  The National Elf Service!  Have a nice day...

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