Today's best bets
I'm away from home this weekend and am still to see any of yesterday's racing (it's hopefully waiting for me on tape at home), bar one race which I caught when diving into a bookmakers to grab a look at the earlier results.
The Channel 4 Racing programme was showing in the bookmakers and it was the last of their live races, a terrible 0-60 handicap at Kempton.
I'm not the biggest fan of low-grade all-weather racing and, as a man who expects to be judged by his results, it must be pretty obvious that I'm looking forward to the resumption of jumps racing. Thankfully, I did at least manage to find a handful of winners yesterday to help balance out the account.
However, it was when I tuned in just in time to watch Alice Plunkett describe a conversation over each-way terms as "snoresville, snoresville, boresville" that I remembered how grateful I was that I hadn't been watching all afternoon.
There isn't a person on that team of presenters that I don't like or respect (or both), but they all looked yesterday as if they couldn't wait to be away.
Four of the six races at Southwell this afternoon carry just £2,600 in prize-money, but the closing contest offers more than double as much cash and it's no surprise to see Mark Johnston concentrate his resources upon that contest.
He has both of the first two in the betting. Joe Fanning retains the ride on Love Delta (as is usually the case with Johnston's team) after the pair teamed up to win a nursery over course and distance a few days ago. However, I prefer the looks of top-weight Bowmaker (3.50).
I can just imagine the steam coming out of Johnston's ears when he saw the handicapper had rated Bowmaker at 85 for an authoritative win in a terrible maiden at this track in October. Even though the second and fourth have come out and won their races since, there was nothing in the form of that race to see him rated anywhere near as highly as this.
But nevertheless it was impossible not to be impressed by the nature of the Dubawi gelding's success and I think he can give 9lb to his stablemate this afternoon.
Wolverhampton & Kempton inspect/likewise Catterick & Towcester
Tomorrow's meeting at Wolverhampton is subject to a "precautionary" inspection at 8am. Kempton officials are due to do the same at 7.30am.
Thursday's meetings at Towcester and Catterick are subject to inspections tomorrow, at 10am and noon respectively.
Towcester's clerk of the course, Robert Bellamy, lives an hour from the course and said: "The track is frozen solid and there are five inches of snow on it. I haven't been able to get to the track for a week but I'm going in tomorrow to have a look.
"The forecast is for similar weather over the coming days, not really rising above freezing and with the wind chill, it could feel more like -5C. I would think the result of the inspection is probably inevitable and the sooner we let people know the better."
Doncaster off
Doncaster's meeting on Wednesday has been abandoned after a scheduled inspection tomorrow was brought forward. Officials had been due to inspect at noon on Monday but with no let-up in conditions and more snow forecast, the decision was an easy one to make with eight inches of snow still on the track.
"It was an inevitable outcome really," said the clerk of the course, David Williams. "There was no point delaying the decision any longer so we brought forward the inspection. It is thawing a little bit today but there is a lot more snow forecast and it would take a significant rise in the temperature to shift what we have got.
"Our next fixture is the Sky Bet Chase two-day meeting on 29 and 30 January when we have three Grade Twos as well so we have our fingers cross we are up and running by then."
Travel hint?
The longest traveller listed in tomorrow's fields is Gargano in the 3.45 at Kempton Park. Mark Johnston is due to send the five-year-old 245 miles and is the trainer's only scheduled runner at Kempton. The horse is used to the road, though. It is Gargano's first run for the Middleham trainer since a spell in Ireland with Joanna Morgan in Meath and John Kiely in Waterford, but had previously been saddled by Johnston for two runs in Britain in 2008.
Murtagh and Moore for Meydan
Johnny Murtagh and Ryan Moore are among the jockeys invited to take part in the inaugural Meydan Masters competition in Dubai on 5 March.
The international jockeys' challenge will be staged at the new Meydan racecourse with the winning riders of the world's 11 premier races of 2009 and one special invitee due to battle for the prize.
Moore and Murtagh will be joined by the Dubai World Cup-winning rider Aaron Gryder, Kentucky Derby victor Calvin Borel, Japanese star Norihiro Yokoyama, Australian Corey Brown, Olivier Peslier and Zenyatta's rider Mike Smith.
Ahmed Ajtebi will also ride in the competition and the now-retired Mick Kinane would have also been able to take part after two qualifying wins on Sea The Stars.
Ted Durcan and Christophe Lemaire will take the two vacant spaces.
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