Weekend Jottings

There are three meetings taking place this afternoon with jumps action from Plumpton and Ludlow and a flat card from Hamilton.  David has three runners today at Plumpton; Dindin, d'Jango and Kolisi (pictured above).  Dindin is the first of those as he contests the 2m3½f handicap chase at 2.15pm.  A multiple winner in France at around this sort of trip, he will certainly have learned from his first start over these sort of fences at Exeter last time.  He needs to improve on that bare form, but he is 4lbs lower in the weights, whilst Philip Armson takes an additional 5lbs off his back.

d'Jango contests the 3m1f handicap hurdle at 2.50pm.  He produced his best effort in this country when runner-up at Wincanton in March and is now 4lbs lower in the weights.  He stays well and with a fluent round of jumping, he should be thereabouts with Philip Armson in the saddle.

Kolisi is our final runner in the 2m handicap hurdle at 4.30pm.  He has been in tremendous form of late, winning his last three starts in the space of eleven days during the early part of April in good style.  He is clearly thriving, loves good ground and despite a 7lbs rise in the weights, he looks to have strong claims once again with Tom Scudamore in the saddle.

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There are four Premiership matches taking place this afternoon with the most interesting clearly the game between Manchester City and Newcastle United.  City arrive here on the back of a devastating loss in the Champions League semi-final earlier in the week.  Newcastle could give them plenty to think about.

My wife will be thrilled to hear that the inaugural running of the Miami Grand Prix takes place this afternoon.  F1 in the States has traditionally not been very popular, with Americans keener on oval racing, so it will be interesting to see how they get on with two races on the calendar.  The popularity of the sport was given a big boost by the Netflix documentary series 'Drive To Survive' so perhaps things will be different this time around?

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My next door neighbour worships exhaust pipes.  He's a Catholitic converter.