Saturday, September 19, 2009

Rest of U.K. and Ireland

Today is also the seventh and final day of Listowel´s harvest festival in Ireland, with 3 flat and 5 N.H. races. The jumps racs look the more interesting and Dessie Hughes and Roger Loughran have a chance of landing a double in the two top races, the novice chase at 16.55 with Sarteano and the handicap hurdle at 17.30 with Trimbellina. In England, there are two class 2 handicaps at Newmarket, and Alan Swinbank and jockey Jimmy Quinn can take them both with Honimiere over 10 furlongs at 16.00 and Saga de Tercey in the Cesarewitch trial over 2 1/4 miles at 16.450. This is however a very tough race in which Aajel (Marcus Tregoning/ Pat Dobbs), despite his huge weight, and Baddam (Ian Williams/ Saleem Golam) must also be respec ted. Swinbank also has a chance of taking the top race at Catterick, a 1 1/2 mile handicap, with German-bred Full Speed (Jamie Mackay). Another ex-German in this race is Stellino (Jimmy Moffatt/ Kosei Miura), but he has been off for over a year and this d istance is not ideal. Another German-bred of interest here is Terminate who runs at 17.45 over 1 3/4 miles for Alan Berry and Slade O´Hara. There is evening all-weather racing at Wolverhampton, but all 8 races are of poor quality.