A Curate's Egg On St. George's Day

The big problem with laying horses is that at some point one of them is going to win - which is exactly what happened with Palace Merano (25/1) at Punchestown this afternoon. Good job it was just a trial lay because it would have put a serious dent in my bank: I'd had a run of 25 straight 'losers' at an average SP of 45/1 (if you're interested, the lowest price was 13/2) and I've been wondering all week when the next winner would turn up.

Both Mojeer and Thousand Stars lost, although the latter finished third behind Hurricane Fly and Solwhit.

Football was mixed to say the least. St. Pauli won at a canter (6-1), Kaiserslautern lost 0-1 to Hansa Rostock, Debrecen went behind but scored five goals in ten minutes to beat Kaposvar 5-1 and despite taking the lead twice (and opening the scoring after 75 seconds), Cesena lost 3-2 at home to Empoli.

Due to the potentially outstanding weather in the UK (I'm going to a game tomorrow afternoon and then off to a barbecue in the evening) I deliberately only looked at the games I could follow personally - and there's only one that might be worth a look at: Inter Milan v Atalanta in Serie A, which kicks off at 5:00pm. Inter need a win to recapture the lead from Roma and they've won ten of the last twelve meetings between these two sides in Milan. A couple of stats worth looking at: Atalanta haven't lead at half time on the road this season (Inter have only been behind once at home after 45 minutes) and there's not much chance of an Atalanta clean sheet either.

I'll post some possible lays earlyish tomorrow morning while I'm watching the Super XIV games on Sky, but I'm going to turn in now - so I'll wish you a good weekend.

St. George's Day On Friday, Still No Bank Holiday Though...

Two German football tips, one Hungarian and an Italian for Friday.

Whoever compiled the Bundesliga 2 fixture list may have done anyone interested in making a trade on Friday a big favour. The top two clubs (sleeping giant Kaiserslautern and everyone's favourite anarcho-syndicalist football club St. Pauli) have home games against teams battling relegation. The Red Devils host Hansa Rostock, who are stuck in the relegation playoff spot: a win for Kaiserslautern would take them one step nearer to the Bundesliga 2 title. Second place St. Pauli - six points behind Kaiserslautern and a point ahead of Augsburg in third - play Koblenz, who are in one of the two automatic relegation places and need some kind of positive result to keep the pressure on Hansa Rostock. I'm going to back Kaiserslautern and St. Pauli.

About 1400km south east of Hamburg is the city of Debrecen, home of this year's surprise Champions League group stage qualifiers. Debrecen are playing Kaposvar in NB1 (National Championship) in what is probably home banker of Friday night. Kaposvar are mid table and have an outside shot of qualifying for the Europa League: unfortunately they're running into Debrecen at completely the wrong time as the hosts are on a ten game unbeaten streak and have won the last five games between them at the Stadion Oláh Gábor Út. I'm picking Debrecen.

For the final footballing stop on St. George's Day, it's a 1100km trip from Hungary to north eastern Italy, where Cesena play Empoli in Serie B. Like all the other teams I'm backing, Cesena are in a great position to be promoted to Serie A for the first time since 1991, but once again they really need a win. Empoli have a chance at the promotion playoffs which would have been a lot stronger they hadn't lost twelve of their last sixteen away games; Cesena ought to win this.

Horse Racing

Some trial lays for Friday:

3.35 Wolverhampton Mojeer (Jockey Nora Looby, Trainer A.J. McCabe) - quick turnaround for a horse that came 9th at Pontefract on Monday.

4.20 Punchestown Palace Merano (Jockey D.J. Condon, Trainer W.P. Mullins) - won a couple of close ones in early 2009, but hasn't finished any better than sixth in seven outings since then.

5.30 Punchestown Thousand Stars (Jockey Miss K. Walsh, Trainer W.P. Mullins) - despite a couple of wins recently, Thousand Stars will be up agains the likes of Hurricane Fly and Dunguib.

The Thursday trial lays both lost: I'm Frank (33/1) finished 4th and Jessie's Dream (20/1) came 7th behind Quevega in the Ladbrokes.com World Series Hurdle at Punchestown.

Should hopefully have enough time to post some ideas for Saturday, but in the meantime happy hunting!