Snow Stops Play At Plumpton

There was another chilly start to the day and whilst we have managed to avoid the snow, the wind chill is making it extremely cold outside.  It's times like these that I am grateful for an office job!  Following the abandonment of Carlisle and Plumpton we are left with just two meetings this afternoon at Newcastle and Wolverhampton on the all-weather.  The Newcastle fixture is a 'jumpers bumper' card, whilst it is all flat at Wolverhampton.  We were supposed to have a runner over the sticks at Plumpton today but obviously that has gone by the wayside due to the snow.  We will be back with runners tomorrow, although the meeting at Taunton is subject to an inspection at midday today.

There was some great racing at Leopardstown over the weekend with Honeysuckle magnificent on Saturday in the Irish Champion Hurdle and yesterday with impressive performances from Quilixios, Appreciate It and Monkfish in the Grade One contests and Kemboy in the feature Irish Gold Cup.  Such is Mullins' embarrassment of riches that he may target the winner at the Ryanair rather than the Gold Cup.  That is shaping up into a tantalising contest.

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Manchester City thrashed champions Liverpool at Anfield yesterday with a humbling 4-1 victory.  That success puts them five points clear at the top of the Premiership with a game in hand.  There is one match taking place tonight with a mid-table clash between Leeds and Crystal Palace to look forward to.

England are in strong position as they head into the fourth day of the first Test match against India.  They were over 300 runs ahead this morning with six wickets in hand and will be looking to build an unassailable lead.

I think I may just have witnessed the finest sporting achievement of all-time last night as Tom Brady steered his Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a surprisingly comfortable 31-9 win over the defending champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.  In the process, Brady was extending his own record by winning his seventh Superbowl in his tenth appearance.  No other quarterback has competed in more than five, whilst he also became more successful than any TEAM.  I have seen some incredible achievements down the years, but this may top the lot.  In a sport where there is supposed to be a level playing field, this sort of dominance is just not supposed to happen.

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I was driving down the road when I ran over some humus. A little further on, I hit taramasalata. Then I saw a road sign: 'Caution - dips in road’

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