Newmarket and Wolverhampton

Autumn begins today with the first day´s racing on the Rowley course at Newmarket since the early summer. Easily the most valuable race is the Tattersalls Million Sprint for 2yo´s over 6 furlongs at 16.40 CET, worth more than 150,000 euros to the winner. These sales race have a distorting effect on the year´s statistics and today´s race is a particularly bad example, as it is a very poor race for the money. On ratings it should go to Jira (Clive Brittain/ Kosei Miura), but she is no good thing and Mark Johnston´s pair Take Two (Joe Fanning) and Lowdown (Richard Hills) could well prove superior. The 2yo handicap at 16.05 sees a quick return from John Holt´s Audacity of Hope, an easy winner at Doncaster last week and he can defy a penalty. He is ridden by Kieren Fallon,who then moves on to Wolverhampton´s all-weather evening meeting, where he has rides in 6 of the 8 races. All his rides have chances, with Luca Cumani´s pair Pictures at 19.20 and Mabait at 20.50 possibly the bes t of them.