One Runner At Leicester

This afternoon there are three meetings taking place with jumps action from Leicester and Wetherby and an all-weather flat fixture from Southwell.  Following the defection of Bladoun, David has just the one runner at Leicester; Doctor Harper who contests the novices' chase at 2.30pm.  Doctor Harper (pictured above) finished a decent second to Garde La Victoire at Ludlow last time and while there are some useful rivals in opposition, he meets nothing of that caliber today and should go well under Tom Scudamore.

Champion jockey elect Richard Johnson heads up to Wetherby this afternoon for two rides and it would appear that he has a leading chance in No Comment for his guv'nor Philip Hobbs.

Many happy returns to Sandy May who rode one of the two winners I had as an owner.  I saw him only recently and he looks all of his 65 years...mind you, he always looked old!  I am only joking of course...happy birthday Sandy, we hope you have a great day.

Newmarket trainer William Haggas is the latest person to weigh in on the great whip debate and he may just have hit the nail on the head.  William says that the jockeys should be banned for a couple of months if they break the rules - that way they will never do it again.  I saw a race in Ireland recently where a jockey hit his mount 14 times from the last to win.  It does make me wonder if a jockey has to hit a horse a couple of extra times to win the Gold Cup for instance, do you think he will have a two month ban on his mind?  I have my doubts.

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Under fire Manchester United manager Louis Van Gaal offered to leave his post on Saturday but was persuaded to stay.  The person who talked him into staying should also leave the club!  They must be absolutely bonkers...why not let the fans have a vote instead?

I see that Jo Konta has managed to reach the quarter finals of the Australian Open Tennis championship and in so doing became the first British woman to reach that stage of a Grand Slam since Joe Durie reached the quarter finals of Wimbledon in 1984.  Lots of you younger people will never even have heard of Jo Durie!  For all that it is great for British tennis, we cannot take all of the credit as Konta was actually born in Australia.  Meanwhile Scottish born Andy Murray reached the quarter-finals of the men's tournament.  Perhaps the Lawn Tennis Association need to spend another £100 million to maybe find another world class player?!

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Did you hear about the burglar who broke into a bakers' shop and ate seventeen prune tarts?  He was on the run for days!

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