Taunton Today

We have three runners at Taunton this afternoon, Bathwick Brave and Weekend Millionair who are ridden by Johnny Farrelly and Northern Jem who will be partnered by Tom Scudamore.  Weekend Millionair makes his debut for the yard this afternoon and he has had plenty of practice over his hurdles as you can see from the picture taken earlier in the week by Bill Selwyn.  It was a glorious day yesterday and obviously there hasn't been much in the way of rainfall in the Westcountry of late as Taunton describe their ground as good (good/firm in places).  Racing gets underway at 2.10pm

We have three runners at Taunton this afternoon, Bathwick Brave and Weekend Millionair who are ridden by Johnny Farrelly and Northern Jem who will be partnered by Tom Scudamore.  Weekend Millionair makes his debut for the yard this afternoon and he has had plenty of practice over his hurdles as you can see from the picture taken earlier in the week by Bill Selwyn.  It was a glorious day yesterday and obviously there hasn't been much in the way of rainfall in the Westcountry of late as Taunton describe their ground as good (good/firm in places).  Racing gets underway at 2.10pm

It was sad to see that Davy Jones from The Monkees passed away yesterday at the age of 66.  Davy had connections with racing and he even rode a winner on these shores aboard Digpast at Lingfield in 1996 for trainer Roland O'Sullivan.  Some of you youngsters may never have heard of The Monkees, but they were a very successful pop group that were put together for a television series - they had plenty of hits including Daydream Believer around the same time as The Beatles.

Looking through the horses in training lists, I see that champion flat trainer Richard Hannon has an incredible 271 horses to train this coming flat season - that's 40 up on last year.  I wonder if he goes around and feels their legs every night?  Mark Johnston is well represented as ever with 211, although the one that did surprise me was Andrew Balding with 167.

With Cheltenham only twelve days away now the form of some of the leading trainers must continue to be a worry.  Tim Vaughan, who had a great start to the season has now had over sixty runners without a winner spanning back almost two months - talk about a bad time for your yard to go out of form.

*****

England were beaten 3-2 in a friendly by Holland at Wembley last night.  It was a very good, entertaining match but I have to say that I cannot see the English or Dutch winning any big European competitions anytime soon.  I am still not convinced that we are as good as we think we are - will Harry make that much difference to our team?