A Lick Of Paint!

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat action from Lingfield, Catterick, Yarmouth and Sandown while there is a jumps fixture from Uttoxeter.  Although David does not have any runners this afternoon stable jockey Tom Scudamore and conditional jockey David Noonan have both picked up mounts at Uttoxeter.  Our two runners yesterday; For 'N' Against and Dusk Till Dawn finished fifth and sixth in the staying handicap chase - the former did well to get back into things after a couple of uncharacteristic bad errors, although they could probably both do with coming down a few pounds in the weights.  The trouble is that it takes so long for them to get back to a winning mark.

I see that trainer Mark Johnston is taking some stick in the Racing Post today following his comments that ITV should completely avoid talk of betting when they take over as the sport's terrestrial broadcaster next year.  I have to say that I completely disagree with his sentiments as well - betting is very much integral to the sport and without it you would lose even more viewers.  As far as I am concerned it is just a case of finding a happy medium as at present everything is too technical and over-analytical.  The biggest challenge is to find a team of presenters that work well together as the current batch are too vanilla.  Research suggests that they will not offend too many people, although I think it makes for quite dull viewing.

You would think at this time of year it is all a bit quieter in a big jumping yard, but far from it.  I was down at Pond House yesterday and was surprised to see that someone had stolen the swimming pool (pictured above)!  I am only joking of course, it is currently empty for re-painting but I had forgotten just how deep it was - around fifteen feet at it deepest.  I still remember when it was being built, Martin nearly killed himself by almost driving a tractor into it when it was being constructed!  The pool was the first of it's kind in the west country and provided a valuable tool for Martin and now David.  Back in the early days Triumph Hurdle winner Baron Blakeney spent a lot of time in the pool as it gives the horse a weightless gallop - now there's a technical term for you!

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They may have a better tennis player than us, but let's just talk football for a moment.  Scottish giants Celtic somehow managed to get beaten by a bunch of part-timers from Gibraltar.  Lincoln Red Imps were 40/1 to win this game and it is certainly not very often that you get odds like that in football.  That is even more of a shock than England losing to the supermarket chain!  Celtic will win at home next week and it will all be forgotten about.

Big Sam Allardyce is now as short as 4/7 to take the job of England manager following talks yesterday.  He can't be any worse than the outgoing manager and at least he should bring some passion back into the team.

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I was hoping to watch the football on television last night but unfortunately I was outvoted 1-1 by Mrs Barnes once again!  Have a nice day...

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