Scottish National Day

It is a bumper day of action for racing fans with no less than six meetings taking place this afternoon.  There are flat cards from Chelmsford City, Thirsk, Nottingham and Wolverhampton as well as jumps fixtures from Ayr and Bangor.  The Ayr card features the Scottish Grand National and David has three runners there; Mango Cap, Impulsive American and Top Wood in the big one.  Top Wood (pictured above) is a 40/1 chance according to the Post and that is too big a price as far as I am concerned.  He does have a disappointing effort over hurdles to overcome but prior to that he was running a big race in the four miler at the Cheltenham Festival when coming to grief and was a convincing winner at Ludlow prior to that.  If he runs to his best and gets this trip he could run a big race.  David also has a runner at Bangor where Obistar runs in the 2m7f handicap hurdle - he should run well under Kieron Edgar.

Despite Paul Nicholls beginning to bridge the gap in the trainers' championship I see that Wilie Mullins has only bought four horses across for the Ayr meeting.  Having said that, one of them, Meaureofmydreams is favourite for the Scottish National.  Mullins is 1/8 to land a first trainers' championship and he currently has a lead of just over £133,000 and apparently he will bring over crack mare Vroum Vroum Mag for the last day of the season at Sandown a week today.

I did say yesterday that I thought our jockey Conor O'Farrell had a couple of good chances for Nicholls and so it proved as he booted home Saint Roque and Red Hanrahan at odds of 5/4 and 5/2 respectively.  It is good to see Conor picking up some nice outside rides.

*****

The Premier League match between Norwich and Sunderland looks to be the big one as there are consequences in the relegation battle.  Should Sunderland win there would only be a point between them.   I will be having a little wager on Aresenal at 4/11, Manchester United at 1/4, Tottenham Hotspur at 17/20 and Liverpool at 6/5.

There is a great tennis match on the box today as Andy Murray takes on king of the clay Rafa Nadal in the Monte Carlo Masters - we will see if Murray has worked out how to play on clay, one thing is for sure, there are going to be some long rallys!  There was a surprise result yesterday as former number one Roger Federer was beaten by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

*****

"It's a well known fact that 90% of all foreign tourists come from abroad".  The wisdom of a certain Derek Trotter from Only Fools and Horses.  Have a nice weekend...

Tweet