Bumper Bank Holiday!

As you would expect from a Bank Holiday Monday there is plenty of racing action taking place this afternoon with no fewer than seven meetings - five of them on the flat at Epsom, Ripon, Warwick, Newcastle and Chepstow as well as two over the sticks at Bangor and Huntingdon.  All this despite the loss of Cartmel due to heavy rain waterlogging the track - Clerk of the course Jonathan Garratt proclaimed it "...Catastrophic as normally the fixture attracts 20,000 people and it would wipe about £100,000 off the balance sheet".  That is a lot of money in anyone's language, especially a small track like Cartmel, however safety has to be the paramount concern.

As you would expect from a Bank Holiday Monday there is plenty of racing action taking place this afternoon with no fewer than seven meetings - five of them on the flat at Epsom, Ripon, Warwick, Newcastle and Chepstow as well as two over the sticks at Bangor and Huntingdon.  All this despite the loss of Cartmel due to heavy rain waterlogging the track - Clerk of the course Jonathan Garratt proclaimed it "...Catastrophic as normally the fixture attracts 20,000 people and it would wipe about £100,000 off the balance sheet".  That is a lot of money in anyone's language, especially a small track like Cartmel, however safety has to be the paramount concern.

As you can see from the picture above, the rain hasn't stopped down here in the last 24 hours - we have had more than ten millimeters overnight and there doesn't look to be any prospect of it drying up in the immediate future.  The ground remains very changeable depending on your location and unsurprisingly therefore the stable has no runners this afternoon.  Our next runners will probably be at Worcester on Wednesday afternoon where the going is currently good (good/firm in places) - having said that, if this rain continues the course could be underwater by Wednesday!

*****

I thought that Liverpool were unlucky only to draw at home with Manchester City yesterday afternoon.  For much of the match Liverpool looked to be the better team with Suarez scoring from a great free kick, bending the ball around the wall in amazing style - this was a big step-up on their 3-0 defeat by West Brom the previous week.

Many of the big teams are still lacking vital components: Spurs and Arsenal continue to look badly in need of a striker to sort out their weak attacks - they still play attractive football, but there is noone there to put the ball in the net.  Meanwhile Man Utd look like they could do with a top-class centre half otherwise they are going to be conceding more goals than Sir Alex would like (and I'm still not convinced by their goalkeeper either!).  I see that Wayne Rooney has had to have surgery to repair a tear in his leg and that could keep him out of action for upto a month - having said that, Utd certainly don't lack for forwards.  Finally, if Aston Villa don't sort themselves out quickly they could be facing the drop...that's sorted the Premiership out then!