Frozen!

There are now only three meetings taking place this afternoon with Newbury's jumps fixture abandoned with the track frozen in places - hardly surprising when you consider that temperatures reached -7°c at the track overnight.  Musselburgh (also subject to an early morning inspection) is the only chance of some National Hunt action today, while the all-weather flat cards from Lingfield and Kempton seem to be holding up well to the elements at present.  Work goes on as usual here at Pond House with our all weather gallop fully operational and the horses able to exercise as normal leaving them ready for action when the weather does relent.

There is an interesting article in the Racing Post today about Martin during his training days.  It features a great picture of him on his bike and is mainly about dandelions...yes, you did read that correctly!  I can confirm that it is all true as he would often have me picking them for the horses as well while one of our great friends, Brian Jennings would bring big bags full of dandelions to Pond House every week.  Martin even went to the lengths of planting £1,000 worth of dandelion seeds in a bid to have a plentiful supply around the place but to no avail!  It is not April 1st, I promise!

I see that dogs must not be allowed off their leads before 12am on the Epsom Downs.  The measure, to protect the horses is sure to upset a few dog owners - the dog set on the beaches around Torbay can be a touchy lot!

Many happy returns to former Irish champion jump jockey Charlie Swann who is 48 today.  I spent quite a lot of time with Charlie while he was riding a lot of horses for the stable - he was a thoroughly nice guy and a tremendous talent in the saddle, winning the championship on no fewer than nine occasions.

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Well, I hope a few of you followed me in on the football yesterday as my little treble came up (and they weren't bad prices either) making sure that we have a bit of food on the table for the rest of the week!  There are some more FA Cup replays on tonight including Liverpool against local side Exeter City and I'm sorry to say it but Liverpool look a steal, even at odds of 1/3.  The only problem is that you are not sure what side Klopp is going to field.

The big game of the night is Leicester versus Spurs and I would be tempted by the 8/5 on offer about Tottenham, purely because they have such a large squad of players available to them.  Coverage is on BBC 1 at 7.45pm, Mrs Barnes will be pleased!

I was talking about the golf rich list yesterday and how Jordan Spieth had knocked Tiger Woods off the top.  Tiger only(!) won $350,000 last year, yet his earnings were an incredible $33 million - he obviously has a few lucrative contracts in place and if I were him I would keep playing as long as he can, even if he isn't achieving the results he once was.

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Why was Cinderella dropped from the football team?  She kept running away from the ball!

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