Unbelievable!

What an incredible day for our sport yesterday with the start of the Royal Meeting at Ascot and a performance of extraordinary excellence from the best racehorse on the planet, Frankel.  The Sir Henry Cecil trained superstar won by no less than eleven lengths from a Group One winner (Excelebration) and take it from me, winning by that distance over a mile against any competition is hard enough - to do it against a top class opponent is extraordinary.  All of the television pundits were waxing lyrical claiming that he is the best horse that they have ever seen and I would probably have to agree with them.  The term "machine" is used far too often, but Frankel comes as close to that description as any of them.

Above: Superstar Frankel before his Queen Anne romp at Royal Ascot yesterday

What an incredible day for our sport yesterday with the start of the Royal Meeting at Ascot and a performance of extraordinary excellence from the best racehorse on the planet, Frankel.  The Sir Henry Cecil trained superstar won by no less than eleven lengths from a Group One winner (Excelebration) and take it from me, winning by that distance over a mile against any competition is hard enough - to do it against a top class opponent is extraordinary.  All of the television pundits were waxing lyrical claiming that he is the best horse that they have ever seen and I would probably have to agree with them.  The term "machine" is used far too often, but Frankel comes as close to that description as any of them.

We drew a blank in the Ascot Stakes with our two runners, Ashbrittle and Fiulin.  Ashbrittle did not get the clearest of runs in eighth place and would have finished considerably closer with a clear passage.  I am certainly not foolish enough to claim that he would have won, but I do believe that he would have finished in the prize money - I am sure there will be plenty of others day for him on the flat or over hurdles.

There are five meetings today with four on the flat headed by day two at Royal Ascot.  There is also action at Hamilton, Kempton and Ripon as well as a jump card at Worcester.  The stable has one runner, Enfant de Lune at Worcester and he participates in the handicap chase under Tom Scudamore.  The drop back in trip should suit him so let's hope that he goes well this afternoon.

*****

It was a great day of sporting action in this country yesterday.  As well as Royal Ascot, England managed to beat the West Indies by eight wickets in the One Day International Cricket, while our football team managed to win their group in the European Football Championships by beating Ukraine last night.  Rooney didn't mind messing up his new hair-do with the winning header, although we were a little lucky as John Terry cleared a goal that was obviously over the line.  Even so, the original play was probably off-side to begin with, but that just goes to promote my argument that there should be technology used in the sport to make sure that no mistakes are made.  Are FIFA so set in their ways that they will not be told how to improve the sport?  It is definitely time for a change at the top.