No Runners Thursday!

It is the second day of Cheltenham’s April meeting today and the girls are the stars of the show with all seven races on the card being for mares and fillies.  Cheltenham is the only jumps meeting of the day and the stable does not have any runners.  Newmarket’s opening fixture of the year continues with the feature Craven Stakes taking place at 3.35pm.  It is a Group 3 contest over a mile and Native Approach heads the market for the Godolphin team and Charlie Appleby. 

There are also two other flat meetings at Ripon and Chelmsford and in Ireland they have jumps action at Clonmel. 

Yesterday came the shock news that Paddy Brennan has retired from the saddle.  I say shock, rumours had been circulating that he may retire at the end of the season but having a Cheltenham winner for his friend and boss Fergal O’Brien I guess he thought the time was right.  The pair were in the headlines for all the wrong reasons a couple of weeks ago but Paddy has had a great career and it was fantastic to go out on such a high.

We have just over a week to go now to the end of the 2023-24 jumps season and things are quite tight at the top of the jumps trainers championship and the lead at the top of the jockeys championship is in single figures with Harry Cobden leading Sean Bowen by nine winner’s.  I think this is a healthy enough lead for Harry, but his agent is a little worried with an extra meeting having been put on at Ffos Las on Monday and racing at Perth next week where Sean traditionally does well could be to his advantage and could make things quite interesting.   

Last night in the football Arsenal 0-1 Bayern Munich and Manchester City 1-1 Real Madrid, the match was taken to penalties and Real Madrid won 4-3.

Tonight there is Europa League action and Liverpool have a tough ask away to Atalanta.  They are 3-0 down from the first leg and also have to bounce back from a League defeat at the weekend.  It will not be easy for West Ham either who are 2-0 to Bayern 04 Leverkusen but they at least have home advantage for their match.  Both games kick off at 8pm.

What do you get if you cross a chicken with a fox?

A fox!

Have a great day!