| Kansas City’s income levels fare well among NFL markets Income levels are declining in a majority of the National Football League’s 30 markets, but Kansas City is faring among the best of them. feeds.bizjournals.com |
NASCAR sets date for Bowyer appeal By 2010-09-25T18:23:38ZDOVER, Del. (AP) -- NASCAR has set a Sept. 29 date for an appeals hearing on Clint Bowyer's illegal car.... hosted.ap.org |
US take 6-4 lead after foursomes flurry • Steve Stricker and Stewart Cink inspire visitors• Four fourballs and two foursomes still to play todaySteve Stricker and Stewart Cink led the way as the USA opened up a 6-4 advantage over Europe after the second session of the Ryder Cup today. After winning the rain-delayed opening fourballs 2-1/2 to 1-1/2 in the morning, the holders took the afternoon foursomes 3-1/2 to 2-1/2 on a day of fluctuating fortunes at Celtic Manor.Stricker played the anchor role in his partnership with Tiger Woods, holing a series of long-range putts in their 4&3 win over Spain's Miguel Angel Jiménez and Sweden's Peter Hanson. Woods was not quite at his best and left his bunker shot in the sand when he tried to escape from a greenside trap at the 10th.The victory by Stricker and Woods, who were unbeaten together in four encounters at last year's Presidents Cup, maintained their 100% record in this weekend's match.Cink, who produced yesterday's best golf, turned his foursomes match around in stunning fashion when he rammed in a 30-foot putt at the 17th. He and Matt Kuchar seemed to be up against it in their contest with Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell when McDowell, the US Open champion, arrowed a majestic tee shot to within six feet of the pin at the penultimate hole.However, Cink's long birdie effort put the pressure back on McIlroy who then pulled his putt left of the hole. McIlroy made a mess of a close-range wedge at the water-guarded par-five 18th, finding sand with his approach while the Americans safely made the green in three to record a one-hole win.The US pair Zach Johnson and Hunter Mahan beat Edoardo and Francesco Molinari two up while a last-hole birdie helped Jim Furyk and Rickie Fowler escape with a half against Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer. Europe's two foursomes victories came from Luke Donald and Ian Poulter, who beat Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton 2&1, and Padraig Harrington and Ross Fisher, 3&2 victors over Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.Ryder CupGolfguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Houston Rodeo adds new champions event The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is adding a new high-stakes competition in 2011. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Prendergast eyes British Group One The veteran Irish trainer needs a good reason to travel to Britain but he may have found oneKevin Prendergast sends runners to Britain so rarely that it is a surprise to discover his last success in this country came in a maiden race at Beverley in 2008, worth £3,562 to the winner. It is less surprising, though, to discover that the victory of Roof Fiddle, which was the only win in her nine-race career, owed everything to the patience and diligence that has kept Prendergast at the top of his profession for nearly half a century."She was a filly that we got from America," Prendergast said yesterday. "She wasn't registered to run in a lot of the races in Ireland or Britain, so we had to look hard to try to find one she could get into. But in the end we did find one at Beverley, so that was where she went. You've got to keep going through the programme. If you don't do that, you're dead."Roof Fiddle was one of just 30 horses to make the trip across the Irish Sea from Prendergast's yard in County Kildare in the last 15 years, and only his second winner since 1996. No horse ever gets onto the boat, though, unless the trainer expects it to be competitive, which makes his juvenile colt Dunboyne Express a very live contender for this afternoon's Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster."You have to have a proper horse to be running in these Group Ones and it's not that often that we come up with one," Prendergast said."And the prize money has got so good in Ireland in recent years that there wasn't much point travelling to race for very little when you could get much more at home, though there's no doubt we're going to be tightening our belts the same as you very soon."But [Dunboyne Express's] form looks good and I'll be disappointed if he doesn't run a very big race. He's only had two runs and last time out [when Dunboyne Express was an eight-length winner of a Group Three at the Curragh] he raced a bit lazily and then picked them up a bit too soon, if anything. But he's very straightforward and I'd hope that he'll be a very different horse at Doncaster. He's really come on for his last run, he's a much more streetwise horse."Prendergast's last Group One winner in Britain was Nebbiolo in the 1977 2,000 Guineas and he has not had a Group winner of any sort since a Royal Ascot double in the Hardwicke Stakes and Coventry Stakes in 1996. His reluctance to cross the water is in sharp contrast to his father, Paddy, who remains the only foreign-based trainer to win the British championship three years running, an extraordinary feat achieved between 1963 and 1965."The travelling was much harder then," Prendergast says. "Now you can travel to Australia with horses and they can be there in 22 hours. Back then, it could take 22 hours to get to a meeting in England. When Aidan O'Brien sends horses to England, they can almost have a plane pull into the yard and they'll be at the meeting in a couple of hours. In the 60s, it took a day in a cattle truck."Paddy Prendergast won the equivalent of the Racing Post Trophy twice in three years in the early 1960s, first with the brilliant filly Noblesse in 1962 and then with Hardicanute in 1964. Noblesse remains the only filly to have taken the race and went on to win the Oaks by 10 lengths in little more than a canter.Even at this stage, Kevin Prendergast already has Classic aspirations for Dunboyne Express, with the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket next spring an early target in his three-year-old season."If horses get a mile at two they usually get a mile and a quarter at three," Prendergast says, "and Dunboyne Express has plenty of stamina on his dam's side, as his dam was a half-sister to [Oaks winner] Love Divine. He should get a mile really well and it's possible he'll get the full mile and a half."If Prendergast is already pondering not one, but two trips to Britain next year, he must suspect that Dunboyne Express could be something special.Horse racingGreg Woodguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |