One More Sleep!

Day two of our Christmas sabbatical with the next racing action taking place on Boxing Day. I can hardly wait - there will be seven meetings taking place, the highlight of which will be the King George meeting from Kempton. David will have a couple of runners on Monday - Dell' Arca (pictured above) in the 2m5f handicap hurdle at Kempton where he will be partnered by Tom Scudamore and Tobacco Road who contests the novices' handicap hurdle at Wetherby under conditional jockey David Noonan.

Of course, the main event is the King George where stable mates Cue Card and Thistlecrack clash. Tom Scu will be riding the latter and I am sure he will be properly excited about the prospect, although if I had to choose between the pair I would go with the proven chase form of Cue Card until Thistlecrack proves that he is superior.

It is a great shame for Kempton as while their feature races have attracted some top class runners, the field sizes are limited. Like the King George, the Christmas Hurdle has attracted a field of just five. The New One bounced back to form to beat My Tent Or Yours and my old pal Gino will be celebrating if he wins this £100,000 hurdle.

I see that some of the ante-post aces have put up Moon Racer for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. He is an 8/1 chance for that race having won both of his hurdle races to date, taking his record to five wins from six starts. David hasn't ruled out a crack at the Champion Hurdle yet - that is how could he thinks Moon Racer could be...let's hope that he is right!

Many happy returns to David's assistant Gerry Supple who is 39 years old today.  I am not sure how many races Gerry won during his career in the saddle although I reckon the majority of them came aboard Fleet Cadet or Carryonharry!  Many happy returns Gerry.

For a change I was actually able to get one of the Racing Post's little fun quiz questions right today!  On page 6 of the Post they ask you to name the pictured horse and rider...well it is Martin's dual Welsh National winner Bonanza Boy and Peter Scudamore.  I wonder if his owners George and Angie have seen the paper?  If they have they will be buying up every copy of the Post in the county!

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I have had a look at the next Premier League matches and I reckon there could be plenty of nice home wins. I will be having a little wager on Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Leicester - it looks as though none of the top sides are playing each other so there could be some Christmas money up for grabs! Crystal Palace travel to Watford for their 12.30pm kick off and the 29/20 available about Watford looks tempting to me.

Jelle Klaussen has called for more drug testing in darts. I don't quite see why drug taking would be an issue in that sport, how can you enhance a darts player's performance? I think I would be more inclined to breathalyse them! What a coup for Towcester greyhound track. They have just signed up to host the Greyhound Derby at the track for the next three years. It wasn't so long ago that people were kicking off about the prospect of even having a track there. Well done to them.

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Finally, a little Christmas joke for our readers. Let's play pantomime horses...I will be the front end and you can be yourself!

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