Worcester Runners

    Only Fools runs at Worcester Today 

It was a great days racing and glorious weather for day one of Royal Ascot and fingers crossed for more of the same today.  Charyn was very impressive in the days opener, the Queen Anne Stakes, while it was an amazing day for young jockey Billy Loughnane who won his first Group 1 race at the age of 18.  He is a huge talent and it is always great to have a story associated to these top races.  There was a win for Australia in the King Charles III Stakes while we saw and emotional success for Richard Hannon junior as he won the Group 1 St James Palace Stakes with Rosallion and you could see how much it meant to him in his interview afterwards.

There is much to look forward to of course ahead of Day two of Royal Ascot, including Auguste Rodin in the Prince of Wales stakes at 4.25pm.  The dual Derby winner from last year is either very good or very bad and today he faces a tough challenge from Inspiral.  I am a fan of Auguste Rodin after meeting him at Ballydoyle last year so I shall be cheering him on in this.

Away from Ascot there are three other flat meetings at Hamilton, Ripon and Nottingham while there is jumping action at Worcester and we have two runners, Kintaro and Only Fools.  There is no racing in Ireland today.

Kintaro runs in the two mile novices hurdle at 4.35pm and Jack Tudor rides.  Our four year old is a character and has ability and it was a nice run from him to be third at Bangor last time out at 66/1.  He didn't show a lot on the flat earlier in the year but seems to enjoy jumping and if he improves again from that run then he looks to have a good each way chance this afternoon.  He is 11/1 third best in the betting but they all have the Paul Nicholls trained favourite to beat, Seeyouinmydreams who is a very short price.  She has to give us six pounds and was she was very impressive at Fakenham but she is a keen going sort and I think she could be vulnerable in this but we will see what happens!

Only Fools runs in the 2m4f handicap hurdle at 5.50pm and Jack Tudor rides.  She is very consistent and always tries was a good third at Hereford last time.  She had had a few quick races leading up to that run so we have freshened her up a bit and she seems in good form at home.  She is 12/1 in the betting, has run well at the track before and hopefully she can run well again.

Last night there were wins for Portugal and Turkey in the football while today we have the first round of the second matches of the tournament.  Croatia play Albania at 2pm while Germany play Hungary at 5.00pm.  Scotland play Switzerland at 8pm in what surely is a must win match for them if they want to try to progress past the group stages.

The cashier said, "strip down facing me".

By the time I realised they meant my debit card, it was too late!

Have a great day!