3 all-weather meetings today

There is all-weather racing this afternoon at Southwell and this evening at Kempton and Dundalk (Ireland) but no highlights at any of them, even at Dundalk, where the main interest will be in the continued battle between Johnny Murtagh and Pat Smullen for the Irish jockeys´ championship. Both ride in all 6 races open to them (2 races are reserved for apprentices); possibly their best chances are Curl Cat (Smullen) at 20.00 CET and Inch Rebel (Murtagh) at 22.00. At Southwell, the most interesting events are the two nursery handicaps for 2yo´s, nd we expect that CD runners-up last time out, Cape Kimberley (James Given/ Seb Sanders) at 15.00, and Comradeship (John Gosden/ Robert Havlin) an hour later, can now go one better.

At Kempton also the 2yo events are the most interesting and several top trainers have made entries in the two divisions of the 2yo maiden at 19.50 and 20.20. Mass Rally (Gosden /Jimmy Fortune) is the clear form choice in the first division, while well-bred debutant Next Move (Saeed bin Suroor/ Ted Durcan) can continue Godolphin´s good run in the second. The classiest race today is the opening conditions race over 10 furlongs at 18.50 at Kempton; Godolphin´s Anmar has not run for over a year, while Mike de Kock´s Russian Sage, who had good form in Dubai, has been below form his latest starts, so we prefer Gerald Butler´s Pachattack, just touched off in a listed race at Newmarket last time.