Rainfall & Records

Today there are two jumps meeting at Haydock and Ludlow but the stable does not have any runners.  Racing gets underway at 12.45pm at Ludlow and there looks to be some good competitive races on the card.  Tom Scu heads there for one ride while Fergus Gillard has two.  Both jocks don't have strong chances of winners according to the betting but you have to be in it to win it!  Just look at the Ayr card yesterday, a trainer from Scotland, Russell Ross, recorded his first ever winner and the horse, Lisloran was backed from 66/1 into 100/30.  The trainer said he did not have his money on but it has got to have come from somewhere, well done to them all however, great win!

The jumps card at Haydock gets underway at 1.05pm and they might not have the numbers in the races that Ludlow do, but they do have some quality horses on show today.  There are only three in the novices chase at 2.07pm but they are all rated 140+ and any one of them could win.  The 2.37pm race is an introductory hurdle which has some nice young interesting prospects while at the other end of the spectrum, the following veterans chase at 3.07pm has some high class horses who are in the twilight of their careers.  Chambard, Blaklion and Coo Star Sivola are three names in a strong field of nine.  Alongside the jumping action there are two flat all-weather cards at Kempton and Lingfield and they race in Ireland on the flat at Dundalk.

I have just totted up the rainfall that has fallen at Pond House in November, we have had 211mm!  November is therefore the wettest month of 2022 so far and by a wide margin.  October is the seconded highest this year but only with 101mm of rain, so we have had over double that this month.  November 2022 will also actually go down as the wettest November on our records which we have been keeping for over 20 years.  It really is quite remarkable that we are still talking about lack of rain despite the recent deluge but it just shows how dry it has been for the rest of the year.  For total rainfall throughout the year we are still the driest to this point (end of November) for over five years.  It is so interesting keeping a record of the weather, we keep a lot of records here at Pond House!

I see there were some more mouth-watering figures recorded in the sales ring at Newmarket yesterday.  There were some very high quality mares going through the ring but the prices were staggering.  The Andrew Balding trained Alcohol Free topped the market at 5,400,000 guineas!  She heads off to Australia to continue her racing career and they then hope to send her Frankel once her racing days are over.  The mare won six races during her career in Britain which included four Group 1's.  Another high class mare, Saffron Beach was sold for 3,600,00 guineas and she is off to race in the Saudi Cup.  The third top lot, Tranquil Lady, was bought by Godolphin for 2,600,000 guineas.  There were plenty more lots who went for 1,000,000 guineas and more, including The Platinum Queen who raced in the colours of Middleham Park Racing.  She was bought at the Breeze Up sales earlier this year for 57,000 guineas, won a Group 1 alongside some other big races this season and was sold for 1,200,000 last night, not a bad bit of business!

England won the football 3-0 last might against Wales and have secured themselves through to the next stage of the World Cup and will play Senegal, the champions of Africa on Sunday.  While Wales kept everything tight in the first half they could not sustain their efforts in the second half and England won quite comfortably in the end.  The USA beat Iran in the other group match and they qualify in second place.  Groups C & D play their final matches today and Argentina are still looking to secure their place in the next round, they play Poland at 7pm, this could be a tough game for them.  France are already through in Group D and play Tunisia at 3pm.  

They announced the winner of the neckwear competition...it was a tie!  Have a good day!