Sandown, Hereford Runners

There are six meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps cards from Ayr, Sandown and Hereford, whilst there are all-weather flat fixtures at Wolverhampton, Lingfield and Kempton.  David has two runners today; Kingofthewest at Sandown and Duc de Beauchene at Hereford.  Kingofthewest (pictured above) contests the EBF Final at Sandown at 1.50pm, a red-hot 2m4f novices' handicap hurdle.  The winner of two of his three starts since joining the Pond House team, he seems sure to benefit from this longer trip and galloping track.  He has a nice racing weight of 10-11, less Fergus Gillard's 3lbs claim and with the bookies paying four places (possibly more if you shop around) he looks to have each-way claims.

Duc de Beauchene is our other runner when he runs in the 2m handicap chase at Hereford at 3.41pm.  The winner of a 2m3f handicap chase at Chepstow last season, he is 2lbs lower today, although he needs to improve on his most recent outings to figure.  Tom Scudamore takes the ride.

There was plenty of rain during the course of the morning yesterday and it made the ground at Exeter extremely testing which produced a number of slow motion finishes.  Seventeen O Four fared best of our runners, finishing second in the 2m handicap hurdle.  He goes well on testing ground and can win again based on this evidence, whilst our other runners, simply did not cope with the gruelling conditions.

It is Imperial Cup day at Sandown today and whilst the valuable prize has drawn plenty of runners, none of them will be competing for the Imperial Cup/Cheltenham Festival double as that has been shelved this year.  David and MCP both achieved the double with Gaspara, Olympian and Blowing Wind and it is a shame there is not the same incentive to spice things up a bit this time around.

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There are three Premiership football matches to look forward to this afternoon with Manchester United versus Spurs looking to be the pick of them.  United were terrible last week when they were battered by City and whilst Spurs aren't in that class, it would be no surprise to see them get something out of this match away from home.  Liverpool continue to give chase to Manchester City and have what would appear to be a winnable match against Brighton today.

Judd Trump reached the semi-finals of the Turkish Masters snooker last night by beating Ali Carter 5-3, whilst Shaun Murphy won a final frame decider as he beat Oliver Lines.  The pair clash tonight for a place in Sunday's final.  The winner of that match will play either Matthew Selt or Ding Junhui.  After a prolonged slump in form, Ding has looked much better this week.

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What do you call a hippie's wife?  Mississippi.