Good Start To 2012!

The stable ended 2011 in good form with a treble on Friday and a winner at Warwick on Saturday and began 2012 in similar vein with a success at Exeter on Sunday.  Swing Bowler, a daughter of David Johnson's cracking good mare Lady Cricket certainly seems to have inherited some of her dam's ability and maintained her unbeaten record by landing her second bumper.  Although there was only a very modest pace, she quickened up in impressive fashion in the straight to score comfortably.  It isn't easy to win a bumper under a penalty, so this certainly bodes well for the future.

African Broadway was a game winner at Exeter on New Year's Day, winnning in a driving finish from the Paul Nicholls' trained Billy Merriott, to whom our runner was conceding 7lbs.  Daryl Jacob was looking around for dangers on the runner-up over the second last, but clearly didn't realise that the horse upsides him was the one!  It was a good performance from our charge and he looks as though he will be even better over a longer trip.

Over at Cheltenham I thought that Matuhi belied his odds of 20/1 by running a big race in the feature chase behind Calgarry Bay.  He wasn't beaten at all far into third place and picked up over £4,000 for his efforts under a good ride from young Conor O'Farrell.

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I was amused to see a picture of Nigel Twiston-Davies over the Christmas period with his kids.  It seems that they all received toys for Christmas - Nigel broke his helicopter, while they also managed to total a radio controlled car by crashing it into a wall!  It seems to me that Nigel could be the biggest kid of the lot of them!

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I saw probably the most one-sided football match ever over the weekend.  Sunderland were absolutely murdered by Manchester City, yet they still managed to somehow win it 1-0.  If it had been a fight the referee would have stopped it in Manchester City's favour...funny old game, football!  Still, I suppose it makes things a little more interesting at the top of the Premiership.