N.H. racing at Taunton and Gowran Park (Ireland)

with Ludlow off, there are now two jumps meetings today, at Taunton in SW England and Gowran Park in Ireland. Taunton is Paul Nicholls´ local track and the champion trainer has several fancied runners today. The German-bred Ghizao (Timmy Murphy) in division two of the novice hurdle at 14.30 CET looks his best chance; after winning twice he was runner-up to the smart General Miller at Cheltenham, easily the best form on offer here.

Express Leader (Christian Williams) in another novice hurdle over a slightly longer trip at 15.30 also has a good chance and gets weight from his principal opponent Wishfull Thinking (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson), who was fancied in a stronger race at yesterday´s abandoned Newbury fixture. Qozak (Williams) can also go close in the handicap hurdle at 16.00, though he has been off the track since the Grand National meeting. However his form looks strong, and he was successful on both his runs here. The obvious danger is Novikov (David Evans/ Roddie Greene) who showed good speed to win at Kempton last Saturday.

The big betting race of the day is the Thyestes Chase over 3 miles, one of Ireland´s best handicaps, at 15.35at Gowran Park with a full field of 20 runners, including top-weight Preists Leap (Thomas O´Leary/ John Cullen), who has won this race for the past two seasons. However he does not look so well handicappd now and we expect that the winner will be trained by Willie Mullins. Unfortunately he has 5 runners, all with top jockeys booked, so the choice is not easy. Ruby Walsh partners Beroni, who has won his last 3 races (two over hurdles) so he is presumably the stable´s number one, but is by no means certain to come out on top in a very tricky race. Lochan Lacha (Tony Martin/ Robbie Colgan) looks very dangerous off a low weight. The other big race here, the Grade Two hurdle over 3 miles at 14.35 has only 4 runners, 3 of whom met last time in a similar race at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting. On that occasion Powerstation (Eamonn O´Connell/ Tony McCoy) came out on top, with Oscar Dan Dan (Tom Mullins/ Davy Russell) second and War of Attrition (Mouse Morris/ Niall Madden) fourth. The weights have changed slightly, but the result may still be the same.