Ripper Street
No sign of rain today yet at HQ and there looks to be drier weather ahead finally, indeed it could get up to 20oc in time for the July meeting. As I said yesterday, I hope to have quite a few runners there and the ground should be perfect at the start of the meeting as it is completely fresh and unraced upon. We also have a runner in the Town Plate from La Grange as Honour A Promise will be heading there, ridden by Frances Stanley and I hope she has an enjoyable ride in the historic three mile six contest.
We run two youngsters at Great Yarmouth today, Ripper Street makes his debut in the first division of the six furlong Novice. He is a son of Big bad Bob and I like him but I expect him to improve a lot for his debut, he is still green and it looks like a decent contest, as you would expect with Yarmouth being in touching distance of Newmarket. Alligator runs in the second division at 2:20, he travelled well at Kempton before not seeing out the last furlong and I hope the drop to six furlongs here will see him in a better light but the second division also looks like a strong heat.
Despite the rain yesterday England still managed to chase down over 300 in just over forty overs and clinch the One Day International Series against Sri Lanka. Jason Roy managed to hit 162 on his home ground The Oval, the second ever highest score in a one day International by an English cricketer. I was saddened to see that the players are pushing for more fixtures in the shorter formats of the game and for less Test matches but it has been amazing to see how the game has transformed in recent times with the average run rates rising significantly.
I heard a good story today, one of my neighbour’s Travellers headed off for his HGV licence test yesterday in the hope he would soon be able to drive the larger horseboxes and much to his dismay the second question asked him how much a bus weighed when empty! He carried on valiantly but when he came to get his result he failed as he thought he had, on enquiry he soon found out that the lady had signed him up for a Category D Bus Driver’s test instead of the Category C HGV test. As frustrating as the whole episode was atleast my fellow trainer knows he won’t be losing a valuable member of staff to Arriva any time soon.