Nice Run Bash

There is plenty of racing action today with four flat meetings, two jumps cards at Hexham and Warwick and the mixed card at Haydock.  The flat racing comes from Lingfield, Ascot, Nottingham and Leicester while in Ireland they race on the flat at Naas and over jumps at Cork.

Haydock hosts its traditional mixed flat and hurdle card with the feature Swinton hurdle one of the jumps races.  We did have Thanksforthehelp and American Sniper entered in the long distance hurdle but decided against running them both with the ground fairly quick and the race coming soon enough after their Punchestown trip.

The jumps races at Haydock look very competitive and they bet 13/2 the field with Our Champ just heading favouritism in the Swinton hurdle for the Chris Gordon team.  Meanwhile, over at Lingfield Aidan O’Brien send runners over to all-weather Derby and Oaks trials with Puppet Master 11/10 favourite for the former while Giselle is 2/7 favourite for the Oaks trial, which has only attracted three runners.  Ryan Moore rides both for the Ballydoyle team and they are likely to be hard to beat.

Yesterday, Bashful Boy finished a very creditable, never nearer eighth in the Chester Cup.  Unfortunately, he did not get quite as good a start as you need to get at Chester to hold a prominent position early in the race.  He was towards the rear and had to sit and suffer for the majority of the journey as you cannot afford to go wide on this tight track.  Jockey Aiden Brooked had to be patient and in fairness to our nine-year-old, when asked for his effort, all he did was stay galloing strongly to the line.  He was only beaten eight lengths in the end and picked up a little bit of prize money.  This was his first run back from a winter break and it was nice to see him run with great credit in a very competitive race.  There is a staying race on the flat for him at Goodwood towards the end of the month and he may head their next.

In the Championship football play-off semi-final last night, Sunderland take a 2-1 lead after the first leg away to Coventry and it is all set up for a tense second leg at the Stadium of Light next. There are five Premiership football matches this afternoon with the teatime kick off being Bournemouth at home to Aston Villa at 5.30pm.

I saw a man that used different cuts of steak to create portraits of people.

It was a rare medium, but well done.

Have a great Saturday!