Come On England (Again!)

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat action from Lingfield, Catterick, Yarmouth and Bath as well as an all-weather fixture from Kempton.  If you are a fan of the jumps, I am afraid you are out of luck - until the weekend at least when there will be jumps from Stratford and Perth on Sunday.  This is the time of the year when the racing calendar becomes quite disjointed with a few blank days here and there but nothing sufficient to give anyone a meaningful break.  Today looks a little like the famine before the feast as the July Cup meeting from Newmarket gets underway tomorrow with three Group races and a Listed contest on their card.

I couldn't point you in the direction of a winner yesterday, but Agincourt finished second yesterday at the decent each-way price of 8/1.  Mind you, the winner of the race, Lights On absolutely bolted up and looks like a typical Sir Michael Stoute older improver.  She has already improved from a mark of 80 to 98 from three to four years and is going to take a further hike for this and looks one to keep on the right side of going forward.

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The eyes of the nation will surely be on England's footballers tonight as they bid to reach the finals of the European Cup for the first time ever and a major final for the first time in 55 years.  Standing in their way is Denmark who are one of the stories of the tournament having lost their first two matches and their best player in the first of those.  They will certainly be no pushover, but England looked very good against Ukraine and with the best part of 60,000 home supporters behind them, England will be deserving favourites tonight.

The winner of this match will take on Italy in the final on Sunday after they beat the Spanish 4-2 on penalties last night.  Italy are a very good side who don't lose very often but you would have to say that on balance, Spain were probably marginally the better side last night.

Wimbledon has reached the quarter-final stages and Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer are in action this afternoon.  Federer is playing in only his fifth tournament in 17 months and has done well to progress.  It would be great to see the 39 year old Swiss star add to his incredible tally at the tournament.

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Why do bees have sticky hair?  Because they use honeycombs!