Great Leighs and Stratford

while the loss of York is a bitter blow, at least there is a decent card on the all-weather at Greal Leighs today, with spme large fields and very competitve racing. The class 3 handicap over 5 furlongs at 16.15 CET has 13 runners and sees several in-form performers in the line-up. Cheveton (Roger Price/ Jim Crowley) has won his last 4 races and is not out of it, nor is Whiskey Junction (Andrew Balding/ Liam Keniry), who earlier also won 4 in a row, whiule the 3yo Hadaf (Marcus Tregoning/ Richard Hills) has not run since winning at Newmarket over this trip in May but is expected to make his presence felt here; these three are all racing for the first time at this track. The mile handicap at 16.50 looks even more difficult with 16 runners. Top-weight Yarqus (Clive Brittain/ Jim Crowley) could go well here, as could Count Ceprano (Mark Usher/ David Probert) and especially Mount Hermon (Hughie Morrrison/ Travis Block), who hs already run two good races here. The class 3 conditio ns stakes over a mile at 17.25 has the strongest field of thr afternoon., Masaalek (Tregoning/ Hayley Turner) won on thr all-weather in May and has since then run 4 good races in top handicaps, while 9yo Vanderlin (Balding/ Probert) is always capable of springing a surprise and Godolphin´s Igor Pritti (Frankie Dettori), a winner in Dubai in the winter, has to be considered despite the poor stable form, but our fancy is Royal Power (David and Adrian Nicholls), whos team are now in tremendous form and who won the German 2,000 Guineas 2 years ago. There are some small fields at Stratford´s N.H. meeting, not surprising as most summer jumpers are fast ground specialists. Paul Nicholls has an amazing srrike rate and can win the class 3 novices hurdle at 16.05 with Simondium (Sam Thomas), whle the class 3 hurdle for 3yo´s should be between the two penalised runners Rory Boy (Nigel Twiston-Davies/ Paddy Brennan) and Simarian (Evan Williams/ Donal Fahy), though neither of them has ev er run on ground as testing as it is likely to be this afternoon. Jam Packed (Jonjo O´Neill/ Tony McCoy) can defy top-weight in the class 3 handicap chase at 17.50, although Evan Williams` Leading Article (Paul Moloney) will be no pushover in receipt of 21 pounds