Great Arc

The weekend has gone by in a flash and what a great day of action from Paris yesterday, if you managed to catch any of the racing.  Australian horse, Asfoora proved her class in winning the Prix de 'Abbaye under Oisin Murphy, becoming the first Australian horse ever to win in France.  Her team had their own dramas before the race and came within minutes of not being allowed to run because they had not brought her passport to the racecourse.  Trainer, Henry Dwyer had bought a horse at the sales the previous evening and the passports got mixed up.  The Australian team have been based in Chantilly with trainer Amy Murphy in preparation to the race and a telephone call back to the yard saw the passport being given to an Uber driver who was tasked to getting it to the racecourse in time!  Thankfully it all worked out for the team and the mare was a fairly easy winner of the sprint and this was her second Group 1 of the European summer.

I was cheering home Minnie Hauk to win the Arc and what a race she ran to finish second, only beaten in a photo finish.  I thought she was given a lovely ride by Christophe Soumillon and the pair looked to do everything right but were just caught close to the line.  Daryz, carrying the famous Aga Khan silks under Mickael Barzalona for trainer Francis Graffard put in a fine late run to just beat the filly.  The three year old colt was trying the 1m4f trip for the first time and he certainly stayed every yard of it! The pair pulled well clear of the rest inside the final 100m and she certainly lost nothing in defeat, they are two highly promising young horses with great attitudes.  It wasn't all bad for the Aidan O'Brien/Ballydoyle team as they did win two other Group 1 races on the day.  

There are six race meetings today across Britain and Ireland with the jumps action coming from Stratford this afternoon but the stable does not have any runners.  The flat racing comes from Pontefract, Yarmouth and Wolverhampton while in Ireland they have a meeting under each code, flat at Killarney and jumping at Tipperary.  Storm Amy brought plenty of wind and some rain to the west country but we would still like some more rain down here please!  A lot of places in the country had far worse weather than we did but thankfully all the racing went ahead over the weekend.  Looking at the going reports ahead of today's racing, the ground is soft up at Pontefract but good, good to firm at Stratford.

Yesterday in the football there were wins for Manchester City, Aston Villa, Everton and Newcastle while Wolves and Brighton drew 1-1.  On Saturday, Chelsea grabbed a late winner at home to Liverpool while Arsenal also won and they sit top of the table just ahead of the reigning champions.  Football now takes an International break.

What word contains 26 letters but only has three syllables?

Yesterday's Answer: A map (I have lakes with no water, mountains with no stone and cities with no buildings.  What am I?)

Happy Monday!