Frankel Does It For Sir Henry!

Will Frankel get more than a mile?  On yesterday's evidence you would have to doubt it, although I was wondering what on earth Michael Hills was doing aboard pacemaker Rerouted - he went off like a five furlong sprinter and it was a complete waste of time having him in the race.  In the end Frankel held on to win by 3/4 length and while some have suggested that Sir Henry Cecil's three year old colt was idling in front, I am not so sure.  Tom Quealley committed fully half a mile from home (personally I am not sure why he feels the need to go so early on a horse that clearly has bags of speed) and he has come in for some stick from some quarters.

Talking of stick, I thought that Paddy Brennan gave Temple Place a mountain to climb at Newton Abbot last night.  He certainly overdid the hold-up tactics and I see that in the stewards room afterwards he explained that the instructions were to get the horse to settle.  Well, he certainly did that - he gave the horse no chance of winning...strange ride.

I see that bookmaker Paul Metcalfe, trading as Jack Beven (all west country punters will remember Jack) claims to have lost on every race yesterday.  He said that it would have been a good day to be mugged!...I guess at least he still has a sense of humour.

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Apparently there will be 8,000 bottles of Pimms consumed at Royal Ascot this week...that sounds like a normal week at Pond House with MCP!  Of course I am only joking - it is usually more!

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I liked Aiden Coleman's tweet on the social networking website Twitter.  He was enjoying the BBC's coverage of Royal Ascot: "loving the Royal Ascot coverage on BBC, enjoying it even more as I haven't seen that coconut that usually does the fashion bit yet".  The rider has certainly gone up in my estimations!