Pride Of Leicester!

There was an excellent training performance yesterday from David to produce Prideofthecastle ready to win at Leicester after an absence of 690 days.  Formerly a useful bumper and hurdles winner, he jumped well and can go on to better things over fences.  He has always looked the type to make up into a decent chaser and rewarded the patience of everyone concerned with a smooth success.  Hopefully Harry Drew won't mind me robbing his picture from the races (above)!  Meanwhile, Pilgrims Bay ran another sound race to finish runner-up in the 2m4 1/2f handicap hurdle.  He was conceding a stone to the easy winner following his monster 11lbs rise for his Wincanton head success.  I expect the handicapper might even consider dropping him by 8 ounces!

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Wincanton and Towcester and a couple of all-weather flat fixtures from Southwell and Chelmsford City.  David has five runners this afternoon with Closer To Home, Unique de Cotte and Baby Sherlock at Wincanton and Navanman and Mozo at Towcester.  Closer To Home was useful on the flat in France but will need to jump better than on his hurdles debut at Newbury, while Unique de Cotte was a classy hurdler who was just denied at last year's Cheltenham Festival in the Pertemps Final.  He carries topweight this afternoon in the handicap chase and a clear round will be top priority having unshipped Tom Scu last time out.  Baby Sherlock makes his racecourse debut in the bumper and our five year old full-brother to Red Sherlock will find everything a new experience - especially the heavy ground.  There are lots of newcomers in the line-up so you just don't know what you are up against.

Over at Towcester, Navanman could improve for the step-up in trip on this stiff track and Kieron Edgar takes a handy 3lbs off his back, while Mozo has already won on heavy ground and is back after a bit of a break and could run a big race.

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Newcastle were beaten 3-0 by Everton last night.  I wonder if all their new signings are going to like their stay in the north and even shorter stay in the Premier League?!

Further afield I see that Gary Neville is finding life as a manager tough as his side Valencia were beaten 7-0 by Barcelona.  It is easy talking about football on the television but it is clearly harder managing your own team.  He should have taken a job in this country in the lower leagues and given himself an education in football management out of the spotlight.

What a great score by England in their one day cricket match against South Africa.  England scored a massive 399 runs including 105 from a great knock by Jos Butler.

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I see that two freed lags in a jail in Chihuahua, Mexico have refuse to leave until Pope Francis visits the prison next month...it must be the Holy Jail!  Have a nice day...

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