Final Few Weeks

It is a pretty quiet day on the racing front today with just the one jumps meeting at Catterick and one flat meeting on the all-weather at Kempton.  Catterick does have to pass an 8am inspection however.  There is no racing in Ireland and the stable does not have any runners.  There was originally scheduled to be a jumps fixture today at Sedgefield but that was called off well in advance as the track is not ready to race.  It was also supposed to be Nottingham’s first flat meeting of 2024 but that was called off because of waterlogging and the weather isn’t set to dry up much for the rest of this week at least – it must be the school holidays or something!

Yesterday there were early closing entries for the Scottish National, Scottish Champion hurdle and for the Bet365 handicap chase at Sandown on the final day of the 2023-24 jumps season.  While we do not have any entries, Willie Mullins has no fewer than 13 entries for the latter race, one more than Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton combined!  There is of course some big prize money on offer for this race and all three names I have mentioned are fighting for the trainers championship.  I have to admit I had not thought about Mullins possibly being able to win but he is only £600,000 behind and with a good Aintree everything could look very different and be very interesting for the last couple weeks of the season.  The same can of course be said for Skelton and Nicholls and it does add extra spice to the closing period.  It would be a little strange however if the leading Trainers championship was won by an Irish trainer and he would have won both titles, strange but possible and a sign of the times! Harry Cobden is maintaining his double figure lead over Sean Bowen in the jumps jockeys title race at the moment.  He had double at Ludlow yesterday  and has had nine winners from his last 35 rides which is an impressive strike rate.  Sean has had six winners from his last 42 rides so while good, he needs more if he is have any chance of catching Harry.  Last year’s winner of the Bet365 chase Kitty’s Light holds entries for this and the Scottish National so I am sure jockey Jack Tudor will be looking forward to teaming up with that popular gelding again.  He does have an entry in the Aintree Grand National as well and I am sure connections will be hoping it stops raining soon as he prefers a bit better going.

A total of 71 entries have been made for the Scottish National at Ayr while there are 48 entered for the Scottish Champion hurdle.

Last night in the football three of the matches ended in 1-1 draws.  Newcastle v Everton, Burnley v Wolves and West Ham v Spurs all finished with the same score line.  Bournemouth beat Crystal Palace 1-0 and Nottingham Forest beat Fulham 3-1.

Tonight there are three Premiership football matches with Arsenal at home to Luton and Brentford against Brighton at 7.30pm.  Manchester City play Aston Villa at 8.15pm.  It is more crucial matches for the top of the table. 

Germany have just warned its population of an upcoming sausage and cheese shortage…they are calling it the wurst kase scenario!

Happy Wednesday!