Jumps Entries!

Another fine start to the day with bright sunshine and temperatures already in the high teens here in the west country.  There are four meetings taking place this afternoon with flat fixtures from Windsor and Ripon and all-weather action from Kempton and Wolverhampton.  It is a pretty low-grade stuff, but at least they have managed to draw some reasonable sized fields.  Unsurprisingly, there are no runners from the Pond House team again today, although, as I eluded to yesterday, we do make entries for the weekend this morning.  It will certainly be good to get back racing over the jumps again.

Little Big Bear was a deeply impressive winner of the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh on Saturday, although he was certainly aided by the favourite, Bradsell fluffing his lines at the start and stumbling on more than one occasion.  Even so, the Aidan O'Brien colt bolted up by 7 lengths and you don't win races of that calibre by that distance without being very smart.

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England's ladies were stripped of a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in the final event of the athletics last night for a lane infringement.  The 4x400m relay produced a grandstand finish with England holding off Canada by 0.01 of a second, only to be disqualified for stepping one foot outside of their lane.  It seems a harsh decision, although when there are such fine margins, it is probably the right one.

England's women beat Australia to land a first gold in the hockey, whilst Laura Muir was sensational to win the women's 1500m for Scotland.

There were a few surprises on the first weekend of Premiership action with Fulham managing to draw with Liverpool.  Indeed the newly promoted side led twice before Mo Saleh's equaliser in the 80th minute.  Meanwhile, Manchester United looked poor as they were beaten by Brighton.  It was business as usual for reigning champions Manchester City as they disposed of West Ham 2-0.

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What musical instrument do you play in the bathroom?  A tuba toothpaste.