Still in Aus and still suffering from jetlag – I suspect I’ll finally get over it when it’s time to go home. I travelled over with Stephen Morana, Betfair’s Chief Financial Officer, who is also feeling it. I had a busy day Wednesday, finishing late in the office – Stephen was asleep in his chair. We walked back to the hotel – I had an early …
Postcard from Australia
I arrived in Melbourne on Monday night and checked into the Crown Promenade. It was a great flight on Qantas – 23 hours including an hour stop off in Hong Kong. I watched three films – Hancock (starts brilliantly, ok thereafter), Meet Dave (some funny bits) and Batman Begins (only saw half, was enjoying it). Yesterday I spent most of the day …
Clean pair of heels
One runner tonight – Parisian Gift goes in the second at Wolver. He’s a very decent animal and if he was 100% he’d be a strong fancy. Tom’s horses have not been at their best recently but he did have a winner the other day and they may be on the way back. PG has had an annoying interrupted season so …
Major chance
One runner today, and with a very decent chance. Major Eazy, a nice 2yo last year, came back a couple of weeks ago and ran a very nice race at Ascot. We didn’t expect much that day and we were pleasantly surprised – he should be fully fit now and ready to do the business. He has a decent draw …
Imponderables
One runner today – Bea Menace goes in the 2:30 at Lingfield and she has a great chance. First time up she needed the run, although she still came close to winning. Second time at Warwick the ground came up on the soft side, which was a concern before the race and we concluded that she didn’t really like it. …
Distant memories and forgotten dreams
Tikka Masala ran a nice race yesterday finishing fifth in a moderate maiden. She was giving weight to all, she had the worst draw and the ground would have been on the soft side for her – fifth was very decent under the circumstances. She’ll be out again soon and I’d be hopeful of a better result. Last night was …
Hot Horse
A quite incredible day in the financial markets today. Massive gains around the world were topped off with an almost unbelievable rise of 936 points on the Dow Jones – a move nearly twice as big as the previous all time high move of 499. It’s the sort of fillip the financial world needed to get moving again, and it’s looking …
Morgans and Goldmans
An incredible and historic day on Wall Street, with the Dow down close to 700 points moments after the open, rallying late to be 300 points up at one point before closing down 128. The trading range for the day was over 1,000 points, which is unprecedented. All things considered it was a pretty good performance, and I sense we’re …
Quick update
I’ll be brief today as I’ve got no time. Skid Solo goes at Newbury – he’ll run a very good race. It looks a pretty decent race which will take some winning – I think he’s a worthy favourite and he could be worth a bet, but I won’t be lumping on. Tom runs Noverre to Go earlier and he …
Move over darling
The markets are grim this morning – Alistair Darling perhaps predictably has failed to calm the storm. I have a lot of sympathy for his approach – he’s been panned for taking too long to make up his mind but he needed time to assess the situation properly. Almost all of the journalistic comment I’ve read so far has been negative …