The horse racing week ahead and a brief look back at the career of Lester Piggott

It was a pretty sad weekend at Triple G Towers with a busted shoulder and three losing bets - onwards and upwards into this week.

We have a lot to look forward to this week, not just the Queen's Platinum jubilee four-day bank holiday weekend, but it is of course the Oaks and Derby at Epsom on Friday and Saturday respectively; my thoughts on the two big races can be found on the Classics page. 

I was saddened, as anyone in the horse racing game would be, to read of the passing of Lester Piggott over the weekend. He pretty much did it all in his career,  he won the Derby a record nine times including on 1970 Triple Crown winner Nijinsky, and the tributes have flowed for the last couple of days to one of horse racings greatest ever jockeys.  The Long Fellow as he was known rode his first winner a twelve years of age and went on to ride over four-thousand winners in his career. He may have been a bit of a rascal and 'jocked-off' a few other riders from good horses depending on what stories you choose to believe, and he certainly had little time for the Taxman, but he was a brilliant jockey.