One Runner At Taunton

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from Epsom, Catterick and Lingfield as well as jumps fixtures from our local track Taunton and Perth.  David runs Baby Sherlock in the novices' hurdle at Taunton at 6.05pm.  Our full brother to Red Sherlock finished third in a bumper at the track last time out, although this looks like a competitive contest and he will need to improve further to figure in the finish here and his odds of 14/1 are a fair reflection of his chances.

All of our runners yesterday went well without quite managing to get their heads in front.  Eamon An Cnoic improved for the switch to hurdles when chasing home long odds-on favourite Ozzie The Oscar who is rated 138 while Shotavodka was not beaten far on his return to hurdling - the ground appeared a little too lively for his liking.  Meanwhile Willem also ran well to finish runner-up at Kempton in the handicap hurdle - he clearly has plenty of ability, although he is not the easiest to catch right.

I see that Barry Geraghty had a right result yesterday when he had his 30 day ban overturned on appeal.  It means that he can now ride at the Punchestown Festival next week.  While I think Barry gave his mount an awful ride, I always felt that 30 days seemed excessively harsh.

Willie Mullins clearly hasn't given up on winning the trainers' championship yet as he has two runners in the four runner novices' hurdle which is worth over £11,000 to the winner.  Mullins is now the outsider at 6/5 to win his first title with Nicholls an 8/11 chance.  It should be an interesting final few days of the season.

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There are some good Premier League football matches on tonight.  There is a Merseyside derby with Liverpool taking on Everton on Sky Sports at 8pm, while Manchester United host Crystal Palace and West Ham play Watford.  I will be having a little home treble at odds of 8/11, 8/15 and 4/7 - that should put a bit of bread on the table for the remainder of the week!

There was a good point for Newcastle yesterday against Manchester City, mind you they could be considered a little unlucky as the City goal was clearly miles offside.  I keep saying it, but referees should be able to view the video evidence when there is obviously margin for error...it would change a lot of results!

Manchester United have only sold 3,500 of their 55,000 season tickets for next season.  It sounds like a worrying stat to me, although apparently it is because they have put the release date back until the management situation is clarified!  Meanwhile, over at Arsenal, manager Arsene Wenger has Riyad Mahrez as his top target in the transfer window.  He will cost in the region of £25 million - there is no way I can see Wenger spending that sort of cash, he is too mean!

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Marriage is a wonderful invention, but then again  so is a bicycle repair kit!

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