The Thaw Is On!

Despite the recent thaw, there was still an early morning inspection at Carlisle to ensure that their jumps card this afternoon can go ahead.  The good news is that they have passed and will be joined by a jumps fixture from Catterick and a couple of all-weather flat meetings from Kempton and Newcastle.  The ground at the turf meetings are sure to be extremely testing so there may not be many finishers.  There are no runners from the Pond House team today, although we will have runners tomorrow and the remainder of the week is looking extremely busy.

I see that Harry Cobden is claiming that he is still in the hunt for the jockeys' championship, although he is currently trailing defending champion Brian Hughes by 14 winners.  That will take some pegging back, especially when you consider the amount of support that Hughes is getting.  His 101 winners have come from a staggering 595 rides.  To put that into perspective, he has had 159 more rides than Richard Johnson and 281 more than Tom Scu - that's nearly double!  As long as Hughes continues to be the go-to guy up north, I can't see him relinquishing his title, this season at least.

It was announced yesterday that ITV will be bringing six live races from each day of the Cheltenham Festival next month.  With the Covid-19 pandemic, it is great that racing will have a bigger presence in people's front rooms.  Cheltenham is the centrepiece of the jumps racing calendar and ITV do a great job of showcasing the sport.  Not everybody has the subscription satellite channels so this is a great opportunity - hopefully it will encourage plenty more followers.

*****

Much as anticipated, last night's football produced a couple of cosy home wins.  There are no Premiership matches tonight, although Liverpool are in Champions League action as they take on RB Leipzig in the last 16.  Normally you would fancy Livepool to win this, although on the back of three recent defeats they are looking vulnerable.  With their title all but gone, Klopp is sure to put out a strong side so Liverpool may still prevail.

England slumped to a comprehensive defeat in the second cricket test against India.  England were bowled out for 164 this morning, some 317 runs of the required total with all ten wickets falling to spinners.  With the series level at 1-1, England will be hoping that the day/night match which begins a week tomorrow will help the seam bowlers rather than the spinners.

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Mick and Paddy were out for a walk the other day when they found three unexploded grenades, so they decided to take them to the police.

"What if one goes off?" asked Mick.  "Then we will have to lie and tell them we only found two!" said Paddy.

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