King George Day

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon with flat cards from Ascot, York, Newmarket and Salisbury, whilst there is an all-weather flat fixture from Newcastle.  There are no jumps meetings taking place today.  The big race of the day is the Group 1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at 3.35pm at Ascot and whilst it features only six runners, they are all quality performers.  Lover is the forecast favourite ahead of Derby winner Adayar, although I will take a chance on Lone Eagle who almost nicked the Irish Derby last time.  The form has been well advertised by Hurricane Lane since and nobody rides Ascot better than Frankie Dettori.  There was a lot of support for Wonderful Tonight yesterday on the back of a wet forecast but the rain has yet to materialise and is still officially good/firm.  Should it bucket it down between now and the off time, it would only serve to help David Menuisier's filly.

Just because there are no jumps meetings today, it doesn't mean that the jump jockey's aren't riding!  Stable jockey Tom Scudamore has a mount at York as he contests the 'Jump Jockeys Nunthorpe' at 2.05pm.  It is a 5f handicap and Tom looks to have a decent chance, whilst former champion Brian Hughes is aboard the likely favourite.  Former Pond House rider Conor O'Farrell, Sam Twiston-Davies and Bryony Frost are among other notable names taking part.

The weather certainly seems to have broken.  The bright sunshine and stifling temperatures have been replace by persistent showers with the promise of thunderstorms ahead.  Hopefully that is not the end of summer!

*****

The first medal of the Olympics went to the Chinese with Yang Qian wining the women's 10m air rifle shooting.  There was only limited interest for the Brits on day one, but Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury made it past the French Open champions to proceed to the second round of the men's doubles tennis.

The youngest competitor at Tokyo is already out of the games but what an experience it must have been for Syria's twelve year old table tennis competitor Hend Zaza even though she lost in the first round.

Manchester United did their prospects of success this season no harm at all yesterday with the signing of Jadon Sancho to a five year deal worth £73million, making him the second-most valuable English player in history behind team-mate Harry Maguire.  Despite all of the negative publicity due to the missed penalty, Sancho was excellent during his time on the field for England in the recent European Championship.

*****

A father came home from a long business trip to find his son riding a fancy new bicycle.
"Where did you get the money for that?" he asked.  "It must have cost £300."
"I earned it hiking," replied the boy.
"Come on," said the father, "everyone knows you don't earn money hiking, tell me the truth."
"It's like I say Dad.  Every night you were gone, Mr Gillespie from the bank would come over to see Mum.  He would give me £20 and tell me to take a hike."