No Luck At Newton

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with a jumps card from Worcester, flat meetings from Salisbury, Carlisle and Bath and an all-weather flat fixture from Kempton.  It is pretty moderate fare on the whole today, although the big race of the day, the Listed Eternal Stakes at Carlisle looks a competitive affair.  The unbeaten favourite, Cloudy Dawn looks plenty short enough for me, bearing in mind she was only winning a handicap from a mark of 80 last time and has a tough task strictly on official figures.  There is also an interesting contest over in Ireland as the Naas Oaks Trial takes place.  There are no runners from the Pond House team today.

Percy Street finished fifth at Newton Abbot last night in the 2m1f amateur riders' handicap hurdle under Martin McIntyre.  He is feasibly treated these days, although he does look as though he could possibly do with more of a test of stamina.

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England did enough to top their group in the European Cup football last night, beating the Czech Republic.  They were workmanlike rather than impressive and now face the runner-up from Group F - given that that group contains world champions France, Germany (who looked impressive last week) and Ronaldo's Portugal it could be something of a poisoned chalice.  The final Group F games take place tonight and then England's last 16 opponents will be known.

There wasn't such good news for Scotland as they crashed out of the tournament following a 3-1 loss at the hands of Croatia.

England's cricketers face Sri Lanka in a T20 match in Cardiff tonight and although the Test team were on the receiving end of a hiding from New Zealand, the one day side seems to be in much better health and Sri Lanka have been struggling.  Hopefully there will plenty for home supporters to cheer about!

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Did you hear about the human cannonball who quit the circus?
The owner was furious, "You can't quit!" he raged.  "Where will I find another man of your calibre?"