Two Runners At Lingfield

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Lingfield and Southwell as well as an all-weather flat fixture from Wolverhampton.  David runs Mozo and Bladoun at Lingfield.  Mozo (pictured above) was the ready winner of a heavy ground bumper at Uttoxeter last season so should certainly appreciate underfoot conditions, while Bladoun still looks to be in the grip of the handicapper.  He did win from a rating of 100 last term although he remains 12lbs above that mark today.

Stable amateur David Noonan is set to turn professional in the next few days.  David has ridden 22 winners from just 102 rides this season and is getting used more and more by outside stables.  He is certainly a young lad on the up and I have to say I am very pleased for him.  He says "David Pipe has been in the game a long time and he and Tom Scu are two to look up to" - I mentioned this to David and he said that some mornings it feels like he has been in the game for a very long time!

I see that there are plans afoot to move the Grand National to a time slot of 5.15pm in order to achieve better viewing figures.  I'm not sure this will really help, I am sure that most viewers would rather have the world's biggest race during the middle the afternoon as the centrepiece to the day...or maybe I am missing something.  Surely a 5.15pm time slot will just see the Grand National clashing with some prime time shows on BBC or ITV?  Why does television have such a large say in everything?  In an ideal world the sport of racing would be able to sell itself and dictate to the television companies how it does things.

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Why is it that Great Britain only has one world class tennis player?  I keep saying that the sport is run by the wrong people and it would seem that Andy Murray would concur.  The British number one went to the £40 million National tennis centre and there was nobody there.  Tennis clubs are too snobby and expensive for youngsters to join and plenty of parents simply cannot afford the membership fee.  As far as I can tell, tennis (and racing for that matter) is in a precarious situation and that starts at the top and my old sport of table tennis should serve as a stark warning to them.  Years ago table tennis was on television every week and the stadiums were packed out - now it is no longer on television and nobody watches it or participates - it starts with the organisers and filters down.  I remember travelling up north to play in an international match and while walking along the train I noticed that all the officials were in first class while us players were in second...that is all you need to know!

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Did you know that a survey of 2,000 people has revealed that one in six have confessed to cheating in a pub quizz by 'googling' the answers?  Sounds more like a pub swizz!

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