One Worcester Runner

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from Newmarket and Kempton as well as jumps cards from Worcester and Fontwell.  David has one runner this afternoon as Herbert Park (pictured above) participates in the 4.05pm race at Worcester, a 2m7f handicap hurdle.  It is a decent race with £10,000 in prize money up for grabs.  The jury is out on Herbert Park - after a very promising novices' campaign in 2015 he was disappointing last season.  If he can recapture his best there is no doubt that he can go very well under Tom Scudamore.

There is a funny old meeting at Fontwell today with a National Hunt flat race parked right in the middle of the card.  This is a good way of keeping people at the course as they tend to drift off before the last if the bumper is the final race on the card.  The bumper has attracted sixteen newcomers so it hardly appeals as a betting medium, although Gaelic Prince set connections back €160,000 so they will be hoping for a return on their investment.

There couldn't have been many punters at Newcastle's all-weather meeting yesterday - only 12 bookmakers bothered to turn up.  Just think how many there are going to be when the cold winter nights kick in!  I am struggling to see the value in tearing up the turf course to make way for more moderate action on the all-weather.

With no watering system in place Exeter must be praying for rain ahead of their big fixture in a couple of weeks' time.  They will not want good/firm ground for the Haldon Gold Cup as trainers will not wish to run their stable stars on a quick surface.

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Leicester beat Copenhagan 1-0 in their Champions League match last night.  They need one more point to progress to the last 16 of the competition which would be a fair achievement.  I am not sure how good Copenhagan are - I think they would struggle in our Premiership.  Meanwhile Spurs should thank their goalkeeper Hugo Lloris who made some world class saves to earn them a draw away to Bayern Leverkusen, although the result of the night must have been Aston Villa winning 2-1 away to Reading - it was manager Steve Bruce's first win with the side.

I see there is a potential snag with the Anthony Joshua fight with Vladimir Klitschko.  Apparently it is to do with one of the belts - these fights are never straight forward.  Does it really matter which belts are on offer?  It is a world title fight and the chances are that it is more likely about the money.

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Since I was a youngster I have been dating girls in alphabetical order.  The trouble is, my latest girlfriend Yvonne is convinced that I will go back to my X!  Have a nice day...

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