N.H. racing at Leicester and Sedgefield

Both today´s jumps meetings in the U.K. go ahead after early morning inspections, but the going will be very testing at both Sedgefield and Leicester. The latter track stages the more interesting racing, but only 4 line up for the best race, a novice chase over 2 1/2 miles at 15.40 CET. Cracboumwiz (Alan King/ Robert Thornton) is at 10 a bit old for a novice, but has a chance on his best form; he was pulled up last time, but the stable was going through a bad spell then while things have looked up in recent days.

The Polomoche (Nicky Henderson/ Andrew Tinkler) and Sunnyhillboy (Jonjo O´Neill/ Tony McCoy) will however be no pushovers. We also expect Queen Poline (Lucy Wadham/ Leighton Aspell) to run well in the opening novice hurdle at 14.40, while the mares´ novice hurdle at 15.40 can go to the penalised Sure Josie Sure (David Pipe/ Tom Scudamore). Ex-German Early Wings (Caroline Bailey/ Andrew Thornton) has been basically disappointing so far in the U.K. but can perhaps be given one more chance in the 3 mile handicap chase at 17.10.

There are some large fields at Sedgefield but not a great deal of quality. The most interesting race could be the handicap hurdle over 3 1/2 miles at 15.30. Our tentative choice is Toy Gun (Howard Johnson/ Ryan Mania) on account of the excellent stable form (3 winners again yesterday), but his stamina is unproven, which is bound to be an issue here. Top-weights And Whatever Else (Sue Smith/ AE Kinirons) and Paddys Tern (Kim Bailey/ Jason Maguire) also come into the reckoning.