Season Finale

It is a busy day of racing action with six meetings taking place this afternoon with flat action from Doncaster, Haydock, Leicester, Ripon and Wolverhampton while the most important meeting is the National Hunt season finale from Sandown.  This is the meeting that will decide the trainers' championship and Willie Mullins has plenty of runners over from Ireland.  The 4.10pm race is the big one, the Bet365 Gold Cup (formerly The Whitbread) and it is worth £150,000.  David runs Dynaste (pictured above) there and Tom Scudamore is in the saddle - as you would expect this is a very competititve race but this represents a drop in grade for our grey who finished a creditable fourth behind Cue Card at Aintree last time.  Indeed, this is the first time he has run in a handicap since he won the Fixed Brush Hurdle at Haydock in 2011.  David also runs Dell' Arca in the twenty runner handicap hurdle at 5.55pm.  If you are thinking of going along, make sure that you give yourself plenty of time - it is going to be busy!

Purple 'N Gold ran a cracker last night at Chepstow to finish runner-up to Ruben Cotter.  I thought that he might struggle over this longer trip but he stayed on strongly to snatch second in they closing stages and he looks as though he will get even further.  How wrong can you be?  Dusk Till Dawn finished fifth but was only narrowly beaten in a bunch finish for the places and was less than two lengths from finishing second.  Richard Johnson was aboard the winner One Cool Scorpion and he will receive his first champion jockeys' title this afternoon from Sir A P McCoy at Sandown.  Just think how many times he would have won it already if it had not been for the great man!

I see that David was busy at the sales at Cheltenham yesterday afternoon and picked up four new horses.  They all have some nice form in the book and a couple of them are looking for new owners.  If you are interested in ownership within the yard, further details will be available on our horses for sale page a little bit later on.

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There is some good football action to look forward to as well with Everton taking on Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-final at 5.15pm.  Everton would need to improve on their performance against Liverpool to have any chance.  You can back United at 11/10 and I would have thought they would have been considerably shorter than that.  I will be backing them today and to win the Cup outright - that sounds outrageous doesn't it?  I know my mate Tony will certainly find it hard to believe.  Meanwhile, Liverpool take on Newcastle United and this is a match that Newcastle desperately need to get something out of.  I will be backing Manchester United at 11/10, Leicester at 4/5, Spurs at 1/4 and Liverpool at 4/6.

Looking through the latest rich list I see that Wayne Rooney tops the list for athletes under 30 with a fortune of £82 million.  I use the term athlete loosely!

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Why did the Peeping Tom steal a pug dog by mistake?  He was trying to take a peke!  Have a nice weekend...

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