Jumps racing at Kempton today

Kempton, better known these days as an all-weather track, stages one of its rare jumps meetings today and the card is certainly much better than is usual on a Monday. Most interesting event is the 3 mile novice chase at 15.05 CET, and Vic Dartnall´s Lodge Lane (Christian Williams), who has Cheltenham ambitions, is the star entry here.

The stable was way out of form last autumn and this will be their first runner for 5 weeks, but he should still be good enough to win his 7th race from 9 career starts. Nicky Henderson´s Au Courant (TonyMcCoy) is the real unknown quantity here, having won all 3 starts with long intervals in between. He could be anything, but will need to be smart to beat Lodge Lane. Henderson is also strongly represented in most of the other races, and three times he is likely to go head-to-head against his big rival Paul Nicholls: in both divisions of the novice hurdle at 14.00 and 14.30 with Rivership Theatre and Al Amaan, and then Ainama and Hebridean respectively, ad again in the concluding bumper at 17.30 with General Miller (Barry Geraghty) and Russian Regent (Marcus Foley) - both Henderson, and Nicholls´ highly-rated newcomer Phidippides, who like all the stable´s runners will be partnered by Ruby Walsh. Tony McCoy has several good mounts, but is unlikely to ride 5 winners today, which he needs to reach the amazing total of 3,000 Brtitish winners - an extraordinary feat which he seems almost certain to complete before the end of the week.

Betting forecast:
1.Race: Al Amaan - Riverside Theatre - Hector`S Choice
2.Race: Hebridean - Ainama - Pale Rider
3.Race: Lodge Lane - Itsa Legend - Au Courant
4.Race: Delena - Wychwoods Legend - Federstar
5.Race: Fix The Rib - Picot De Say - Pepsyrock
6.Race: Pop Ahead - Nemetan - Just Jaffa
7.Race: Phidippides - General Miller - King Of Leon