One At Hereford

Hopefully there will be four meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps action from Hereford supported by three all-weather flat meetings from Lingfield, Newcastle and Wolverhampton.  Hereford need to pass an early morning inspection before they can race but if they get the go-ahead David runs former French flat winner Arakdios who has been off the track since 2015.  He has schooled nicely at home ahead of his hurdles/Pond House debut but this looks to be a pretty strong race with Strong Pursuit forecast to go off at 8/15.  Arkadios will be ridden by conditional jockey Michael Heard who claims a handy 5lbs off his back

Of yesterday's runners I thought that Celebre d'Allen ran with a great deal of promise in what could be a decent bumper at Bangor.  He travelled like the best horse in the race for a long way and looked to have put the race to bed when quickening away from them on the home turn only to be run down inside the final furlong to finish third.  He looks like a nice prospect for the future and surely it is only a matter of time before he is getting his head in front.

There is plenty of criticism of ITV's racing coverage in the letters column of today's Racing Post.  One questions the wisdom of Victoria Pendleton giving Mick Fitzgerald riding tips, while another derides Matt Chapman for acting like he was on a kid's comedy show...there are plenty more!  Let's give them a bit of time, it is still very early days and they can only get better.  Let's hope they improve before the promising viewing figures dip below the old Channel 4 ratings.

It was David (and Martin's) long suffering senior secretary Gail's birthday yesterday.  I won't tell you how old she is, although I will give you a clue by telling you that she was a fresh-faced young woman when she started work at Pond House 33 years ago in March.  The photographs are proof of what 33 years with the Pipe's will do for you...only joking!  David and Martin took her and partner Raymond to the Culm Valley for dinner last night and they had a great time, accompanied by Carol, Leanne, Gemma, Gerry Supple and fiance Jo Buck.

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Arsenal will be pleased to come away with a point from their match against Bournemouth last night after they were 2-0 down.  Even so, it looks like you can count the Gunners out of winning this season's Premiership.  Meanwhile, it looks as though Big Sam has his work cut out at Crystal Palace after they lost at home to Swansea and are now only one point above the bottom three.

Mike Phelan has been sacked by Hull - a post he held for less than three months.  Hull are not very good and unless they spend around £300 million they are going to go down.  You cannot rest all of that at the door of Phelan...I am not sure these owners know a lot about football!

Talking of football, I will be looking to recoup some of yesterday's losses with a wager on Spurs at 7/4 to beat Chelsea - you heard it here first!  The action is on Sky at 8pm.

I see that snooker player Alfie Burden has been suspended from the sport and fined £5,000 for betting on 86 matches involving himself and other players.  I wonder how many of them he got right?

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Thought for the day...Gambling is an excellent way of getting nothing for something (and I should know)!

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