Two Newbury Runners

We have four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps action from Musselburgh and Newbury while there are also a couple of all-weather flat cards from Lingfield and Kempton.  David has two runners at Newbury today with Vincent's Forever contesting the juvenile hurdle of two miles at 12.20pm and Ballywilliam in the novices' limited handicap chase at 1.30pm.  Vincent's Forever was a decent performer on the flat for John Gosden and is clearly better than when disappointing on his first start over timber at Market Rasen - the hood is back on and a better effort is anticipated.  Meanwhile, useful hurdler Ballywilliam (pictured above) makes his chase debut and the more rain, the better his chance - the trip will suit and he has place prospects at odds of around 10/1.

I see northern jockey Brian Hughes was docked a winner after he weighed in 2lbs light.  It all happened due to a hole in his weight cloth which meant that lead fell out.  I reckon trainer Peter Niven will be investing in some new weight cloths.  It is hard enough game without trivial things like this costing you winners.

Commentator Ian Bartlett lost his voice and so had to give up his duties at Wincanton yesterday afternoon.  It never seems to happen to motor mouth Matt Chapman who was at Southwell - in fact, I am not quite sure why Matt even needs a microphone!  He was on the receiving end of some stick from Gay Kelleway, although she did give him a kiss in the end!

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I did my money yesterday backing Arsenal to beat Everton.  The Toffees beat the Gunners 2-1 and the Premier League is looking the most open in years.  There are plenty of matches tonight to get my money back and I will be having a cheeky little double on Stoke at 9/4 and the mighty Hammers at 4/6.

Ronnie O'Sullivan was back in action yesterday as he beat Matt Selt 4-2 in his Scottish Open match in Glasgow with a highest break of 124.  He will be keen to land this title for a third time - the last time he won it was in 2000.

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Little know fact, did you know that the average Brit spends two years of their lives hungover and reliant on lie-in's and fry-up's to recover?  Unbelievably, this statistic increases during the month of December!

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