We had Rain!

We had some very welcome rain at Pond House, late yesterday afternoon and through the night, totalling 22mm.  Hopefully a lot of racecourses and other areas will have had that two, which was much needed and hopefully there is a bit more to come.  It remains mild so the horses in the field were fine and we have a nice start to the day here at Pond House.  Today, there is one jumps meeting at Southwell but the stable does not have any runners.  It looks as though it could be a good day for Sean Bowen who has a few favourites to ride with the Skelton's the main dangers throughout the afternoon.  There is racing at Newton Abbot tomorrow and while we don't have any runners there this time I see they had 14mm of rain yesterday and while this has helped the ground, they still have good to firm in the going description.  They are forecast anything from 2-10mm of rain today which is a wide range so I am sure they will be putting some water on in case they get more towards the lower end of the range.  We do have a runner at Warwick tomorrow evening but at the time of writing, they have yet to update their going as yet.  

It is a quieter day on the racing front compared to some days, with just three flat meetings at Pontefract, Wolverhampton and Newcastle and no meetings in Ireland.

2024 Champion Chase winner Captain Guinness has been retired by trainer Henry De Bromhead at the age of 11.  The seven time winner won over £800,000 in prize money and was ridden by Rachel Blackmore for all of his wins.  

We have reached the quarter final stages of the French Open tennis in Paris although I have to confess I have not heard of a lot of the players left in the tournament!  I do not follow it all as much as I used to but I am looking forward to Wimbledon as always.  World Number One Aryna Sabalenka easily made it through yesterday with a straight sets win and a lot of the media were actually more interested in how many thousands of pounds worth of jewellery she was wearing rather than the tennis!  I think it was reportedly worth $150,000 but I am not sure if that is true or not!

Vitality Blast cricket returns this evening with the Hampshire Hawks against the Susses Sharks while a little closer to home to England ladies team are in action in Taunton in an International Twenty20 match against India at 6.30pm.  Hopefully the weather will not interrupt this one.  I see the England football team landed in Miami yesterday ahead of the World Cup starting towards the end of next week.  The first game kicks off on Thursday 11th June and is Mexico against South Africa while England get underway on Wednesday 17th June against Croatia.

Why did the old man fall down the well?

He couldn't see that well.

Have a good day!