Prize Giving!

There is no racing now until Boxing Day but what a day we are in for with eight meetings to look forward to, better still - seven of them will be over jumps and the feature is obviously the King George meeting at Kempton.  The big race will be at 3.10pm and it promises to be a classic renewal even with the defection of Coneygree.  David has Ballynagour entered and while the bookies make him a 66/1 chance he has form which ties him closely with some of the leading protagonists - without his latest start he would be nothing like those odds.

Tom Scudamore was down at the yard yesterday to school a few...I am sure he was there for that reason and not to pick up his Christmas presents!  You can always tell when Tom is in the yard - he has the dirtiest white car I have ever seen!

Gevrey Chambertin's owners Roger Stanley and Paul Reynolds were also in the yard yesterday along with friend Owen and I was able to present Roger with the prize won by Gevrey Chambertin at Lingfield the week before.  Martin took the picture, mind you it did take him about five attempts to push the button on the camera...I think he might struggle a bit with action shots!

There was a real shock yesterday when Sheikh Mohammed's bloodstock advisor John Ferguson announced that he would be relinquishing his jump trainers' licence at the end of the current season so he can concentrate on the Godolphin brand for which he has just been named Chief Executive.  Training 100+ rated flat horses to win at Sedgefield over the sticks must be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Looking through the trainers' table I see that David is still fourth behind messrs Nicholls, Hobbs and Skelton while Tom Scudamore is 7th in the jockeys' championship even allowing for his time on the sidelines with his knee injury.  Meanwhile David Noonan is 25th on the list with 23 winners and what a great season our young conditional jockey has had.

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I see that the 2017 Tour de France will start in Dusseldorf - surely that is Germany?  Maybe it should be called the Tour de France and other places?!

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Finally, a Christmas crackers from Mrs Barnes (who tells me that my recent funnies haven't been that funny, so she is taking over!).
How many chimneys does Santa have to climb down on Christmas Eve?  Stacks!  Don't even contemplate laughing...

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