Weekend Jottings

There are two meetings taking place on these shores today with jumps cards from Sandown and Ffos Las.  It is a busy day for the Pond House team with four runners across the two meetings.  They are, Flammarion, Eden du Houx and Poker Play, who run at Ffos Las and Gwencily Berbas who runs at Sandown.

Flammarion runs in the 2m novices' hurdle at Ffos Las at 1.20pm.  He finished a good second on his debut for the stable on the flat, before making a winning hurdling debut at at Newton Abbot at the end of September.  He was a bit disappointing returned to the flat last time, but a repeat of his Newton Abbot run would give him sound each-way claims with Tom Scudamore in the saddle.

Eden du Houx contests the 2m novices' limited handicap chase at 1.55pm and it is a trappy little race, with every runner at single -figure odds.  Eden du Houx was a very good bumper horse and hurdler and produced some good efforts last term over fences over a variety of trips.  He looks reasonably treated on the best of those efforts from a mark of 125 and hopefully will have benefitted from a wind operation.  Unfortunately with only seven runners, there are only two places for betting purposes.  Tom Scudamore takes the ride.

Poker Play is our final runner at Ffos Las as he contests the 3m handicap hurdle at 3.40pm.  He has won at the track before and is 1lb lower than his last winning mark over hurdles, so has a chance on that basis.  The softer the ground, the better his chances under Tom Scu.

Gwencily Berbas is our sole runner at Sandown as he contests the 3m veterans' handicap chase at 3.15pm.  He has run well on both starts since joining the Pond House team, notably when splitting a couple of subsequent winners at Kelso in May.  He is 3lbs higher, so this is tougher, but he looks to have claims once again with Fergus Gillard taking 3lbs off his back.

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There are four Premier League football matches to look forward to this afternoon and the pick of those could well be West Ham versus Liverpool.  Both teams are flying high in the league and the Hammers could offer Liverpool a stern test, although I would still fancy Liverpool to edge it.

Today's cricket matches are between New Zealand and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Scotland.  It should be a formality for Pakistan, and whilst New Zealand should win, Afghanistan are perhaps better than many people have expected.

The Formula One circus moves onto Mexico this week and a track that historically has suited the Red Bull chassis well.  With Verstappen already 12 points ahead of championship rival Lewis Hamilton, that spells bad news for the seven-times world champion.

Finally, my beloved Minnesota Vikings head over to Baltimore tonight to take on the Ravens in what should be a tough match for them.  The Vikes have the talent to get a result, although another narrow loss is probably the most likely outcome.  Standby for Monday morning's moan.  One of the racing club members very kindly wrote to me last week, hoping that the Vikings give me something to shout about this season...I can tell you, they have already done that, it is just mostly expletives!

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I sometimes talk to myself, because occasionally I need expert advice.

I used to be addicted to the hokey kokey until I turned myself around.