Catterick and Lingfield

Flat racing this afternoon at Catterick and Lingfield, and at the fomrre track the 5 furlongs handicap for 3yo´s at 16.30 looks quite tricky, even though there are only 7 runners. Discanti (Tom Easterby/ David Allan) is the likely favourite after winning 2 of his last 3 races but Know no Fear (John Quinn/ Ronert Winston) mees him on 12 lbs better terms than last time and could well reverse the form. Top-weight Sudden Impact (Paul Green/ Russell Kennemore) ran second at Haydock on Sunday, but that was over 6 furlongs and this trip is possibly too sharp. His jockey has a better winning chance half an hour later with Nelson´s Column, trained by George Moore and dropping in class in the 1 1/2 mile claimer. At Lingfield, where the first 3 races are run on turf and the last 3 on the all-weather, the most interesting event is the Paul Kelleway Memorial over a mile at 17.20 and it would certainly be appropriate if his daughter Gaye should win. She saddles two runners, Vortex (Jimmy Quinn), a veteran all-weather specialist who seems to have lost form and will be retired after this race (and 17 career wins) and the lightly-raced Maydan Dubai (John Egan), but the one to beat is surely Sir Mark Prescott´s Mster of Arts (Seb Sanders), unbeaten in 4 starts this year, including this CD. The most interesting turf race here is the opening 9 furlongs maiden at 15.20, which features Plavius (Saeed bin Suroor/ Frankie Dettori), yet another wildly expensive Godolphin purchase (nine million dollars!), who was a total flop o his only racecourse outing so far, last October at Leicester. Recent form points to another Maktoum runner, Sheikh Hamdan´s Talayeb (Marcus Tregoning/ Richard Hills), runner-up at Newmarket 25 days ago, but there will be long faces if Plavius fails again.