Any fan of Elizabeth Taylor, or really anyone whosemother made them watch the young Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet, will beaware of the England's Grand National. The Grand National 2017, held at Aintree in Merseyside, is both thetitle race, and a three day festival of horse racing which captures England'sattention, at least those interesting enough to love horse racing. Security is tight for this year's 170 yearold event, a nod to the sad state of today's world. One of the roles of sport, of course, is tolift our spirits and bring us together. The grand spectacle should uplift the 150,000 expected for theduration. 40 horses will be in the running for the GrandNational Race, with all horses, so far, having favorable odds. At present thereare two long shots at 100 to 1, "La Vaticane" and "Cocktails atDawn." Four horses stand inreserve, ready to compete if any of the 40 drops out. County Cricket returns to England today, as the 2017Specsavers Championship gets under way. Eight teams are chasing glory, this season, in Division One, and 10teams are competing for the two promotion spots in Division Two. All of this intermingled with internationalcompetition, including an unusual nighttest in August against the West Indies. Lancashire's rising star this season isalready known to our readers. HaseedHameed debuted with India, in Testcompetition this last Winter. Lancashirefaces no Test matches until midsummer. Achallenge this year is a Twenty20 competition starting up outside of the Countymilieu, but as even the venerable Times of London acknowledges, the big moneycomes from Twenty20, not a five day test. Again, readers of this space will recall that an over, in Cricket, is aseries of six pitches. While one matchof Test Cricket lasts through five days, Twenty20 means that in those games,each side gets only 20 overs, and so an entire game may take two to threehours, and be filled with competitive action. It seems that Yorkshire willagain be a powerhouse this year in the County Championship, while the threecounties which have never won a championship, Gloucester, Northants, andSomerset, will likely remain uncoronated again this year. The Davis Cup, the "World Cup of Tennis,"currently being contested at Rouen in France, has shown a rather evenly matchedcompetition so far, with France and Great Britain playing so evenly matched,that they may end this weekend in a tie. No chance for a soccer style "shoot out" for tennis. Even GB's Andy Murray has not been able to spook the French. Watch for an update in this spacetomorrow. In professional golf, in the Masters inAugusta, Georgia, previous winner and early favorite, Jordan Spieth, has laid a proverbial egg in early rounds,and has been left behind. CharleyHoffman’s massive lead at the 2017 Masters evaporated over the course of sixholes in Round two, and as the leaderboard opened up, the playing conditionsimproved. By the end of Friday, some of golf’s fan favorites made a run to getinto contention heading into the weekend. In today's round 3, Hoffman istrying to be the next in a line of surprise first-time winners, but Friday alsosaw Sergio Garcia fire a 69 after going bogey-free in Round 1 to claim a shareof the lead. Garcia’s place in this championship hunt is just one of a fewstorylines that has the potential to define this weekend's rounds of the 2017Masters. Sometimes the interest in sports is what they don'ttell you... Games, records, arerewritten, champions from years before are removed and recast. Such is the way of the missed call. In Wednesday's soccer match between NewcastleUnited and Burton Albion, in England, abad call was made by a referee, and a penalty kick, missed, was awarded toBurton Albion. Newcastle scored a goalin the second half, winning the match by one. They have been informed that, had they lost or the game ended in a tie,they could have demanded a replay, starting at the 29th minute. They still could, if they wanted to vacatethe win. When a game is done a game is done. Can we please stop rewriting history? -- Posted By Rex to Speed o Rex at 4/08/2017 03:31:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
