Stratford 1-2!

It was another good weekend for the yard yesterday when our two runners at Stratford, Bathwick Man and American Art completed a 1-2 in the 2m6f handicap hurdle.  Bathwick Man is an admirable performer who always gives his best and inevitably chips in with a win or two.  Meanwhile American Art who was running in his first handicap in twelve months having been competing in sellers (won four last term) ran really well conceding 5lbs to his stablemate and you would think that he would be able to pick up a handicap on this evidence.

There are five meetings taking place this afternoon, four on the flat at Lingfield, Ayr, Yarmouth and Wolverhampton as well as a jumps card at Uttoxeter although the stable does not have any runners today.  Meanwhile over in Ireland their Galway meeting gets underway - they are hosting a mixed flat and jumping card this afternoon and there is bound to be plenty of Guinness consumed this week!

*****

The Olympic Games continue to be the main focus around the country, but while everything appears to be going swimmingly on the surface, the cock up's seem to carry on unrelenting...I mean, why on earth are there empty seats?  Did we not know that the Olympics were coming to London?!  It portrays a terrible picture around the globe when we cannot fill the stadiums.  I don't care if the empty seats were allocated to all the hanger-oner's, there are thousands of people out there who would have paid good money to be at these events - even the catapult competition!  There are so many sports, it's difficult to focus on your favourites.

It could only happen in Britain...G4S, the company put in charge of recruiting security guards (and failing miserably I might add) have now lost the keys to Wembley Stadium!  They had to call a locksmith in to open the doors - I bet that is the most bizarre door he has had to open, although some of my mates could have probably got in there without keys!

I was quite surprised to hear how the pundits were saying how well Andy Murray had played to beat Wawrinka in the tennis.  Surely as the world number 4, and inferior only to the exceptional trio of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, he would have been expected to beat his lower ranked opponent?  The media seem to love building Andy Murray up only to knock him down again.

At least on a positive note, the British football team managed to carve out a 3-1 win against the UAE.  They still have plenty of work to do but a win is a win and they now take on Uruguay in Cardiff on Wednesday.