Unfortunately, when we turn up at the restaurant, we are told that we will have to wait an hour for a table. My resolve is pronounced missing and, 10 minutes later, I binge on a cheeseburger next door.Day FourI arrive at work, guilt-tinged. The corporation signed an interim deal yesterday that will protect its racing coverage until the end of the year. The deal also ensures terrestrial coverage of other big meetings like Royal Ascot and Goodwood.Ladbrokes Grand National betting: 9-1 Hedgehunter, 10-1 Bear On Board, Clan Royal, Jurancon II, 14-1 Bindaree, Davids Lad, 16-1 Amberleigh House, Joss Naylor, Monty’s Pass, Shardam, 25-1 First Gold, Gunner Welburn, Le Coudray, Lord Atterbury, Southern Star, 33-1 Alexander Banquet, Artic Jack, Maximize, Spot Thedifference, Takagi, What’s Up Boys, 40-1 bar.. A spokesman for Channel 4 said: “We are working hard to reach an agreement which ensures the UK horseracing industry continues to benefit from the exposure terrestrial broadcasts provide, but which also makes commercial sense to Channel 4.”The BBC has stepped in to save terrestial TV coverage of the Derby on 5 June after the collapse of the Attheraces Channel threatened to black out coverage of one of the most important events in the racing calendar.
His trainer, Criquette Head-Maarek, is keen to get a quick run into the Khalid Abdullah-owned colt ahead of the traditional French 2000 Guineas prep, the Prix de Fontainebleau, on 25 April.Richard Hughes rides the son of Bering, who carried all before him last season, winning the Grand Criterium and Doncaster’s Racing Post Trophy.* Attheraces intends to claim back more than £50m from racecourses following the collapse of the Media Rights Agreement, but Channel 4, a member of the attheraces consortium, has said it is negotiating for the terrestrial broadcast rights. It’s dreadful.” Ladbrokes have promoted Hedgehunter to National favourite at 9-1 from 11-1.Timbera was to have been ridden by Jim Culloty, who partnered the 10-year-old to victory in last season’s Irish Grand National. Culloty will now ride outsider Just In Debt for Martin Todhunter while Hughes will try to get Timbera ready for a repeat bid at Fairyhouse on 12 April. “I don’t know at this stage how long he will be out for, but we’ve got two weeks,” he added. Harbour Pilot, third in the last two runnings of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, has been allotted top weight of 12st in the Irish National.Dual Group One winner American Post starts his Classic build-up at Saint-Cloud today in the Listed Prix Omnium II over a mile in which he faces just four opponents. Timbera, the 10-1 ante-post favourite for the Saturday’s Grand National at Aintree, is almost certain to miss the race.
Trainer Dessie Hughes said yesterday: “He didn’t scope clean this morning, so it’s highly unlikely we’ll get him there We always scope them before a big race just to make sure.
That is, she will enjoy herself in both the heptathlon and long jump And the world will enjoy watching her.. If I could I would have walked out by myself, but they wouldn’t let me.”She managed an almost immediate return to training, and now professes herself “100 per cent” as she prepares for an Olympics at which, if all goes according to plan, she will seek medals in both the heptathlon and long jump. But it was hardly the standard stricken departure as she waved and smiled to the crowd all the way into the tunnel.”I just wanted everyone to know I was OK,” she said yesterday. “It was not that bad an injury – just a very small, tiny tear of the hamstring. “No,” she says, her eyes flashing palely blue, “I will not feel extra pressure I will refuse to feel extra pressure. Athletics is something I enjoy, and I will never change that focus just because of a medal or you all here.”The suggestion that she could add another 290 points to the total of 7,001 she amassed in Paris last summer to become the world record-holder was dismissed in similarly emphatic fashion.”I don’t think about the world record or winning a medal or anything like that when I’m competing,” she said “That’s not why I do this.
I do this because I enjoy it, and I will do this until I don’t like it any more – or it doesn’t like me any more.”There is little doubt that the first option will arrive long before the second, such has been the impact on the sport of this exuberant young woman from Boras, the home town of Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg.Earlier this month, after producing a long jump which eventually earned her a bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships in Budapest, Kluft was carried from the arena on a stretcher after injuring herself. It was only moments before the event’s master of ceremonies employed the word “kinky”.Purely by the way, this eye-catching stunt also served to promote Kluft’s sponsors, Reebok, in the run-up to this summer’s Olympics, where Kluft is an all-singing, all-dancing favourite to earn a gold.If that is a pressure, it is one she is resolutely resisting. “We are going to be smearing Carolina with some of our nasty-looking goo,” she announced. It is driven by the commercial interests of the big biotech companies and, no doubt, pressure from the White House.”. Something unusual happened at yesterday’s publicity appearance in London by the world heptathlon champion, Carolina Kluft.