Battle Group's Chase Debut

We have just one runner this afternoon.  High class staying handicap hurdler Battle Group travels all the way up to Wetherby to make his chasing debut.  He proved to be a revalation last season over timber, winning on no fewer than five occasions, culminating in triumph at Aintree's Grand National meeting.  He will be ridden by Tom Scudamore - let's hope that he can put in a clear round and make a successful start to his new career.

High class hurdler Battle Group makes his chasing debut at Wetherby this afternoon

We have just one runner this afternoon.  High class staying handicap hurdler Battle Group travels all the way up to Wetherby to make his chasing debut.  He proved to be a revalation last season over timber, winning on no fewer than five occasions, culminating in triumph at Aintree's Grand National meeting.  He will be ridden by Tom Scudamore - let's hope that he can put in a clear round and make a successful start to his new career.

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Racing is a great leveller and just one day after recording seven victories with as many runners, Nicky Henderson had two odds-on shots fail to even complete the course yesterday...this is definitely a case of back to the drawing board!  Still his runners remain in excellent form and I am sure that he will be back among the winners sooner rather than later.

I always enjoy looking through the statistics pages and I see that David is another that is on the hot trainers' list.  He has had 9 winners from his last 44 runner at a strike rate of 20%, long may it contiue!  On the jockey front, A P McCoy is unsurprisingly also on the hot list having won on 16 of his last 49 rides at a strike rate of 33%.  It would be more incredible if he wasn't on the hot list considering his overall strike rate of 29% on the season!

One jockey who won't be appearing on any hot lists, at least for a couple of days is Laura Pike.  I don't do social networking websites and I certainly don't do tweets, but I did like the one from the jockey following her two day whip ban yesterday - "I've never had a whip ban in my life but I hold my hands up and need to practice counting!".  Weighing room colleague James Millman summed it up beautifully when he retorted "Blonde and from Essex - amazing it hasn't happened before!".

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I can barely believe it, but there is a very real possibility that Manchester City may fail to qualify for the Champion's League after they lost 2-1 to Napoli last night.  They now have to go to Bayern Munich and even if they get a result there, they may still fail to go through.  Still, they are going to win the Premiership...sorry Eddie & Tony!