One at Lingfield!

Unfortunately none of the intended jumps fixtures for today have beaten the weather and we are left with just the two all-weather fixtures in Britain at Lingfield and Wolverhampton. We do have one runner on the flat as well, Kintaro at Lingfield.  He makes his stable debut in the 1.25pm handicap over 1m4f and Rob Hornby rides.  He is a four year old who has only had six career starts and he has shown a good level of form without winning. 

He steps up in distance today but did finish fourth over 1m2f on his last start for Richard Fahey.  He wore a visor that day but has no headgear today, only a first time tongue strap following wind surgery. After starting life in handicaps off 82 he is now down to 74 so hopefully he is now better treated.  The plan is to go juvenile hurdling and he has schooled well at home but we will find out a lot more about him this afternoon.  He has done everything asked of him at home and it will be interesting to see how he gets on at about 8/1 in the betting.

There could be some jumps race action in Ireland at Navan but they must pass a 7.30am inspection.  Yesterday, Haydock called off today’s meeting before their intended check at 8am while Taunton also did the same.  They were due to inspect at 12 noon but the news of its abandonment filtered through before that and I can’t say I was surprised.  We are not too many miles from the track and it was another very cold night into Friday morning.  While temperatures did start to rise throughout the day with a nice bit on sunshine that is now four nights of hard frost to come out of the ground which will take a bit of time.  Temperatures dropped again throughout Friday afternoon to below freezing last night but we have awoken to plus temperatures this morning.  When walking across the grass, although the frost has given on the very top it is still rock solid underneath.  Fingers crossed we get to near double figure temperatures later today to give the Sunday jumps meetings any chance of going ahead.  Both Lingfield and Fakenham will inspect this afternoon ahead of their Sunday cards but I would not be surprised if there were Sunday morning checks at both courses.  There was welcome news of two additional fixtures being put on in light of the recent abandonments.  That means there is now an extra meeting at Plumpton on Monday and Chepstow on Wednesday – both tracks lost their meetings this week.  I did hear however that the BHA opened up the Monday for Northern tracks to apply to put on the meeting and not one of them took up the offer!

There are just two Premier League football matches today, Arsenal are at home to Crystal Palace at 12.30pm.  The second match is at 5.30pm and Brentford are at home to Nottingham Forest. 

American Cam Young leads the Dubai Desert Classic Golf at -13, three shots clear of Adrian Meronk and Andy Sullivan both at -10.  Rory McIlroy is a three time winner of the event but is 10 shots off the lead at -3.

Woke up in a cold sweat, terrified that I had overslept for work.

But quickly realised I was already at work so breathed a sigh of relief!

Have a good day!