The Frankel Factor

With no jumps action to look forward to this afternoon it is left to the flat boys to entertain us with three meetings at Goodwood, Leicester and Musselburgh.  It is pretty moderate fare at Musselburgh and that is unsurprising when you consider that there is only £28,000 up for grabs across eight races (with prize money of less than £1,900 on offer for the winner of five races on the card) .  If the owners are happy to compete for peanuts then the racecourses will continue to keep putting this sort of money up.

One place where there will be no shortage of prize money on offer is at Ascot next month for Champions' Day where we could be witnessing Frankel's swansong.  With six weeks to go until the day, the Frankel factor has ensured that general admission tickets are almost sold out and there are only seats left for the Grandstand at £26 each.  It just shows you what a draw this horse is and what he can do for gate receipts.  I just hope that this renewed interest in racing will continue when his racing days are done.

I see that flat jockey Kirsty Milczarek has her name down for the flat jockeys' hurdle race at Lingfield in November.  I bet that Frankie Dettori doesn't put his name forward...one spin over hurdles for MCP was enough for him.  Fortunately for Frankie, his mount was so well schooled that he only had to close his eyes and let the horse do the work at the jumps!

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I have been watching some of the action from the Paralympics and was fascinated to watch a ladies' table tennis match yesterday.  They looked really good and the Polish lady is in the top 50 players in the world - I reckon I might even have my hands full with her!  Seriously though, this was probably the first match I have watched the whole way through in thirty years.  It made me want to get my bat out and give MCP a thrashing!

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I was amused by Ian Poulter's tweet yesterday as he warned punters to do their homework on players track records.  He says "don't blame me" - he obviously doesn't like playing at the Deutsch Bank Championships in Massachusetts!

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On the football front, I was interested to see that football star Michael Owen is only a 9/4 shot to rejoin his former team Liverpool...of course the new manager let Andy Carroll go on loand without replacing him - probably not a good idea!  I see that Didier Drogba could also be heading back to England so watch this space.