Ripon and Southwell

Very little excitement to be expected today, with just two meetings (flat racing at Ripon and on the all-weather from Southwell) this afternoon and two more this evening, with no racing in Ireland. Southwell´s card is mediocre, and the "best" race is the class 5 handicap for 3yo´s over 7 furlongs at 16.45 CET. The top-weights Arabian Spirit (Ed Dunlop/ Robert Winston) and Montiboli ((Kevin Ryan/ Neil Brown) seem to hold the strongest claims; the former is still a maiden, but has run several decent races, while the latter is much improved and has won 2 of his last 3 races, including here. The main danger is Michael Bell´s Top Draw (Hayley Turner), who looked a bit unlucky the last twice. At Ripon, the class 3 handicap over 6 furlongs at 16.30 looks very open, with almost all the 10 runners having a chance. Three of them ran against each other at Thirsk 17 days ago, where Valery Borsov (David and Adrian Nicholls) ran out a ready winner from High Curragh (Kevin Ryan/ Paul Mulrennan) with badly-drawn Swinbrook (Richard Fahey/ Paul Hanagan) sixth. At the revised weights it is certainly possible that these placings will be reversed, but opposition could come from Malcheek (Tim Easterby/ David Allan), 6th of 15 in a hot handicap at York last time. Ed Dunlop´s Stock Market is probably better than a class 4 handicapper and can defy top-weight in the 10 furlongs handicap for 3yos at 17.00 with Ted Durcan in the saddle.