Four At Uttoxeter

Today is the last day of jump racing before we have the annual later-summer ten day break and we have four runners at Uttoxeter.  Lion Road makes his Pond House debut in the conditional jockeys' selling hurdle and he will be ridden by Conor O'Farrell, who also partners Tasheba in the 5.10pm race (also in that race we have Laustra Bad ridden by Tom Scudamore) and Francis Hayes takes 10lbs off Very Cool's back in the staying handicap hurdle.  Let's hope that we can enter the break with a winner...

  
Above left: Very Cool and right: (l-r) Laustra Bad and Lion Road all compete at Uttoxeter this afternoon

Today is the last day of jump racing before we have the annual later-summer ten day break and we have four runners at Uttoxeter.  Lion Road makes his Pond House debut in the conditional jockeys' selling hurdle and he will be ridden by Conor O'Farrell, who also partners Tasheba in the 5.10pm race (also in that race we have Laustra Bad ridden by Tom Scudamore) and Francis Hayes takes 10lbs off Very Cool's back in the staying handicap hurdle.  Let's hope that we can enter the break with a winner...

On the level over at Doncaster it is Legends Day.  The innaugral running of the Leger Legends race (won by multiple Irish champion jump jockey Charlie Swan) was a huge success and I am pleased to see them doing it again.  However, I was more than just a little surprised to see Luke Harvey's name among the "Legends"!  During his days as a "jockey", Luke had one ride for Martin and it duly bolted up (it must have been a really good horse) and he never rode for him again, so he had a 100% record.  MCP was not only a good trainer of horses, he also knew what a jockey looked like!  I am only joking Luke...or am I?!  Anyway, legendary American lady jockey Julie Krone looks the likeliest winner to me aboard Invincible Hero.

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I saw what looked like a good two year old at Lingfield yesterday afternoon...Princess Of Orange won on the turf by a ridiuclously easy three lengths.  First time out she hung badly on the bend on the all-weather track but clearly showed the benefit of that run and Rae Guest's youngster should certainly be kept on the right side of in the coming weeks.

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England's footballers managed to beat the Welsh last night 1-0, but if you had got involved at odds of 1/7 about England, you would have had more than your share of anxious moments.  They certainly did not look anything like as accomplished as they had done against Bulgaria last week and struck me as being a long way short of what is required to win the European Championships.  Meanwhile it was a great result for Ireland to get a draw with Russia.

Finally, during the recent riots, Manchester City signed Italian striker Grabatelly - boom boom!