Saturday 28th April 2018

The Punchestown Festival keeps on giving, Faugheen rolling back the years was fantastic. He stayed every yard of the three-mile trip and won easy as you like. Willie Mullins said after the race, Faugheen might go chasing next season. It was a shame Samcro & Melon fell at the same hurdle yesterday, I was so looking forward to that battle. Thankfully both horses are fine.

The bloody awful weather is back with a bang, rain is forecast every day now until Wednesday of next week. On Monday, we could see sleet, heavy rain and winds. Just when you thought the ground was drying out, we’re back to square one.

All the meetings this afternoon will likely be ran on soft ground and we’ll see some strange results. It’s the last day of the jumps season but it all start again tomorrow when everybody is back on zero.

Sandown is the main fixture in the UK. The card is a mixed bag of flat and jumps racing. The Bet 365 Gold Cup at 3:35 is a cracking race. Bigbadjohn 12-1 & Regal Encore 18-1 would by my two against the field. I’ll have a throw away £10 on each for a bit of interest.

Leicester hold a good card of flat racing, it’s nice to see some of the top jockeys at the meeting. The going is soft, but I can’t see it riding any better than heavy judging by what’s been going on outside my window for the last 8 hours. I’m about 30 mins from the racecourse.

Roger Varian runs a nice horse in the 2:45 called Emmaus, he’ll have to be nice as this is a good race. Emmaus is smart and works with some of the yards Group winning horses. He’s already a C&D winner. I’m hearing Emmaus could have perhaps done with one more piece of work, but this race has been the planned starting point since last year. He's expected to go close at odds of 5-2 but isn’t quite as strong as the last 3 horses put on here from the same yard that all won.

At Wolverhampton this evening, Hamada makes his return in the 7:30. I know Hamada was considered very useful when last seen two years ago. He’s obviously had his problems but is fit and ready for this race. It seems significant he’s been kept in training. Hopefully Hamada retains all of his ability.