Pair of Runners

There are three jumps meetings today, cards at Huntingdon, Kelso and Uttoxeter plus it's Arc day at Chantilly.  Tom Scu goes to Kelso to ride Awesome Tunes in the 3.25pm race, a handicap chase over 2m7f.  He was fourth last time out over hurdles at Worcester but he is an Irish point to point winner who has schooled well at home and we hope he can run well.  David has one runner at Uttoxeter, Unanimite at 3.35pm with Daryl Jacob on board.  He has been slightly disappointing of late but has blinkers on this afternoon and tries the trip for only the second time, having run well at Musselburgh over further back in February.

I have been looking at the prize money on offer for the Arc, it's over 5 million euros total for the race which has attracted 16 runners, and 8 of the 16 runners have jockeys on board that are based in England.  The favourite for the race is the Roger Varian trained Postponed.  It is hard to count all the one's by his name!!  It does however look a hard race to take a short priced one about.  I think the Japanese runner Makahiki could run well.

Looking ahead to next weekend there looks to be a cracking card at Chepstow with good prize money on offer.  Colin Tizzard's Thistlecrack could make his chase debut on Sunday.  It is amazing that he is already 6/1 favourite for the Gold Cup having not even jumped a fence in public yet!  On Saturday there is another one of those Legends races and if you are interested in this be sure to get at the course early as this is on before the 'proper' racing gets underway.  Talking about Legends, Francome, Scudamore, Smith Eccles and Bradley were all spotted playing in the mist at Thurlestone golf course last week.  They then went on to play Morntonhamstead the next day - they certainly love their golf!

There are five football matches on today, Arsenal 2/5, Leicester 5/4, Man United 4/11, and Spurs 21/10 will keep me interested!

I was amazed how quickly Kevin Magnussen's car caught fire in the practice of the Malaysian Grand Prix.  There were flames everywhere before the fire was put out.  It was caused by a leaky fuel pipe - I would have steered well clear!  I am having a flu jab today which leads me to a joke...don't think of it as a flu jab.  Think of it as installing virus protection software!  Have a good day.