Pilgrims Perfect!

The stable was back among the winners yesterday with the victory of Pilgrims Bay at Wincanton.  He was given an excellent ride from Conor O'Farrell who had to be at his coolest to score by a head.  Pilgrims Bay is a talented horse but isn't the most straight-forward as illustrated when he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on his rules debut in a Ffos Las bumper last season.  He travelled powerfully throughout yesterday and always looked as though he was going to win and Conor only had to get serious with him halfway up the run-in, but even then you could see he was thinking about it.  The narrow margin of victory means that his mark of 110 should not be hit too hard...who am I kidding?!  That success move David onto the half century for the season so it was a good day all round.

Unfortunately following an early morning inspection the scheduled meeting at Chepstow has fallen foul of the weather.  It is hardly surprising when you consider the effort that went into putting the Welsh National card on a couple of weeks ago - the ground would have taken some real punishment then and it hasn't exactly been dry since so to get it back in time for today would have been an incredible achievement.  That leaves us with three meetings this afternoon with jumps cards from and Market Rasen and a couple of all-weather flat fixtures from Lingfield and Wolverhampton.

There was some excellent news last night as the Arena Racing Company announced that they would be re-opening Hereford racecourse from 6th October.  Since it's closure in 2012 the track has only hosted a few Arab meetings and point-to-points so it is fantastic that National Hunt will be returning there.  Let's hope they don't try and put down an all-weather surface!

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I see that the golf was delayed in Abu Dhabi because of the fog.  Interestingly, when it did get underway Jordan Spieth was fined £2,000 for slow play...I don't suppose he will be too bothered as he received a £770,000 appearance fee.  Maybe they are trying to get their money back in fines!

South African cricketer Ab de Villiers is trying to wind up England's fast bowlers by saying they have lost pace.  He was winding Jimmy Anderson up good and proper..the way they have batted it is a good job he has lost a bit of speed because they couldn't even handle our medium(!) pacer, Stuart Broad!

Rumour has it that Gareth Bale could return to Spurs as they have the first option to buy the Real Madrid star back should he become available.  Having said that, Tottenham are traditionally a selling club - when was the last time you saw them spend £30 million on a player?

Tyson Fury has been promoting himself again by shouting "there is only one Tyson Fury!".  Thank goodness for that...when he fights a proper young heavyweight fighter he is going to find himself on his backside.

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Patient: Doctor Doctor, my husband thinks he's a bird.
Doctor: Well send him in.
Patient: I can't, he's flown south for the winter!

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