Back At Cheltenham

We were out of luck over the weekend but there were some decent performances, with Panic Attack faring best of our runners, finishing a close fourth in the Pertemps qualifier at Cheltenham on Saturday, seeing out the longer trip well and proving that she doesn't have to have a flat track to perform.  Dell' Arca was far from disgraced on his first start since May at Aintree yesterday.  The winner of the race did score easily, but Dell' Arca was not beaten far by those filling the places and he was trying to concede 33lbs to the victor.

There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with a jumps card from Ayr, flat fixtures from Redcar and Leicester and an all-weather card from Newcastle.  There are no runners from Pond House today, although we will be back with runners at Chepstow tomorrow, whilst declarations for Taunton on Wednesday take place this morning at 10am.

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There were some interesting results in the Premier League over the weekend and no sooner had Chelsea put down a marker with a 7-0 defeat over ten-man Norwich on Saturday, Manchester City put Brighton in their place with a 4-1 defeat of high-flying Brighton away from home, then Liverpool produced an even more impressive performance by hammering Manchester United 5-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday.  Although it is early days and the league is still relatively tight, these three sides look the class of the division.

Max Verstappen won a thrilling US Grand Prix yesterday, leading home title rival Lewis Hamilton by little over a second.  Verstappen lost the initiative at the start but with an aggressive pit strategy, managed to jump the Mercedes after the first stint and held on under intense pressure during the closing stages.  The win leaves Verstappen twelve points ahead of Hamilton with six races to go in the next eight weeks and the Mexico circuit coming next, expected to suit the Red Bull.

The T20 Cricket World Cup got underway at the weekend and England produced a great performance to beat the West Indies.  England skittled out their opponents for just 55 runs and had no problems passing that total.  They will face much tougher tasks, but you couldn't ask for a much better start than this.

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My nine year old came up to me yesterday and said, "Dad, I have a pun for you."
I said, "Great, what is it?"
She said, "It's a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word."
Totally owned.