| York Ebor meeting to finish on Saturday from next year Next season's Ebor Handicap at York will be run on a Saturday as the feature race on the final day of the track's August Festival, following a decision by Ripon racecourse to end a potential fixture logjam and move its current meeting on the same date to a new slot in September. The shift will be confirmed when the 2011 fixture list is finally published next week, and fulfils a long-cherished ambition for the north's premier racecourse.Premier meetings including the Cheltenham Festival, Royal Ascot, Chester's May meeting and the Dante fixture at York have been edging towards the weekend for several years. Acquiring Ripon's Saturday date could potentially turn the Ebor, which is already Europe's richest Flat handicap and has previously been run on the second day of a Tuesday-to-Friday meeting, into the most significant handicap of the season for punters.High-profile sprint handicaps including the Stewards' Cup, Wokingham Handicap and Saturday's Ayr Gold Cup are now secure in Saturday slots, but the Ebor, which was first run in 1843, could surpass them all in terms of turnover."The Ebor is already right up there," George Primarolo, a spokesman for Totesport, the race's sponsor, said today, "but a move to Saturday would have the potential to put it right out in front. Ante-post interest is broadly the same in all those big handicaps, but staging a race on Saturday will always have a big effect on raceday turnover."Strong Suit, the one-time favourite for next year's 2,000 Guineas, was a surprise absentee from the final field for Saturday's Group Two Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury. Richard Hannon's juvenile, who won the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot but could finish only third in the Group One Phoenix Stakes last month, is now likely to run in the Group One Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket on 1 October."There's nothing wrong with him," Hannon said today. "We've decided we'd go straight for the other race. Libranno [the Richmond Stakes winner] runs at Newbury and he's in fine form."A field of seven includes the William Haggas-trained The Paddyman, who was second to Libranno in the Richmond. Ed McMahon will saddle Weatherbys Super Sprint winner Temple Meads.Horse racingYorkGreg Woodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Jets WR Edwards practices day after arrest By DENNIS WASZAK Jr. 2010-09-22T17:14:19ZFLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) -- Braylon Edwards is practicing with the New York Jets, a day after the star wide receiver was arrested for drunken driving.... hosted.ap.org |
Jason Burke on the Delhi Games Games organisers forced to give away thousands of free tickets after 60% of available seats remain unsoldOrganisers of the troubled Delhi Commonwealth Games are to draft in thousands of schoolchildren and hand out free tickets to the poor to fill empty stadiums at events that paying spectators have shunned.At a chaotic press conference today, Suresh Kalmadi, the head of the Games organising committee, admitted that only 600,000 of the 1.5m available tickets for the 12 days of the event had been sold and that some venues had yet to be furnished with tickets.Many events took place today, the second day of the event, in front of only a few dozen spectators. Kalmadi, who was jeered at Sunday's spectacular opening ceremony, denied the scandals associated with the preparations for the Games had contributed to low attendances. Indian spectators are not used to paying to watch live sport and few workers receive time off. Competition from a thrilling cricket test match, which saw the national side beat Australia, is also likely to have contributed to the poor sales in recent days.Tickets for the events start from 50 rupees (70p), about half the daily wage of a labourer. "If it is a choice between paying to watch the first round of the lawn bowls or this kind of cricket for nothing, it's not a difficult choice," said Mohan Rao, a sweet shop owner in Friends Colony, south Delhi.Though the opening ceremony passed off well, widely praised by local and international media, a string of problems off-stage on Sunday night have now been revealed. Successive technical problems with the new line of the Delhi metro serving the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, where the ceremony took place, led to thousands of spectators arriving late or missing the event. The metro opened only hours before the ceremony, three months behind schedule. Poor co-ordination with police also meant dozens of foreign diplomats and their families were kept waiting for hours for transport to the venue.The massive security operation surrounding the Games, which has seen around 80,000 police and paramilitaries deployed in Delhi, has prompted complaints from athletes for causing delays in travelling to and from venues.Police said they had searched the athletes' village after receiving an anonymous bomb threat, but found nothing. Though most athletes and officials now say they are happy with their accommodation in the £150m village, there are still concerns about hygiene.Michael Fennell, the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, said he had requested an investigation into stomach complaints suffered yesterday by two Australian swimmers, including men's 400m freestyle silver medallist Ryan Napoleon. Several athletes are also reported to have complained about the smell from an open sewer over which the new dedicated expressway leading from south Delhi to the village has been built.Problems with the scales at the boxing weigh-in have now been fixed, officials said.Today India got its first gold medals when Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang won the men's 10m air rifle pairs. "It was always important for us to do well on home ground," Bindra said. "It gives us a good start, and hopefully we will have many more medals in the coming days."England won its first two golds in the swimming events today. Francesca Halsall beat world champion Marieke Guehrer of Australia in the women's 50mbutterfly, and world champion Liam Tancock won the men's 50m backstroke. Australia currently leads the medals table.Commonwealth Games 2010IndiaJason Burkeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Mesa wants what Scottsdale gets: Cubs fans Boosters of a $99 million outlay by the city of Mesa for a spring training ballpark for the Chicago Cubs hope the new stadium and accompanying development will help the city capture more hotel and entertainment spending. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Ex-Oilers owner gets home detention for perjury By GREG RISLING 2010-10-27T18:09:23ZRIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- Former Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington was sentenced Wednesday to six months of home detention for making false statements in his Southern California bankruptcy case.... hosted.ap.org |