All-weather racing at Southwell, Wolverhampton and Dundalk(!)

The Irish flat season opens today with an all-weather evening meeting at Dundalk. There are some huge fields, including 18 runners in each of the two bumpers that open the card. Obviously punters should be careful, with little current form to go on, although quite a few runners have been active over jumps. This applies for example to Whodoyouthink (Oliver McKiernan/ Declan McDonogh), who has been in good form over hurdles and last ran 4th behind Cheltenham favourite Dunguib.

If he can translate this form to the flat he can hardly lose the 2 mile maiden at 20.30 CET. Dermot Weld has his jumps string in good form and can possibly score twice here with Bobs Pride at 21.30 and Award Ceremony in the evening´s best race, a 7 furlongs handicap at 22.25, both with Pat Smullen aboard. An interesting ex-German runner is Sweet Wake (Noel Meade/ Shane Foley), who runs in the 10 1/2 furlongs handicap at 21.00. He has been out of form - both over jumps and on the flat - for a long time, but if anywhere near his old form must have a good chance off this rating.

The most interesting runner on a poor card this aftrnoon at Southwell is Tomintoul Star (Ruth Carr/ Andrew Elliott), who has bottom weight in the mile handicap at 15.30. A constant disappointment for Henry Cecil last year, he ran well when second over this CD for his new connections recently and can go one better now.

Best race at this evening´s Wolverhampton fixture is the 6 furlongs handicap at 18.40. Rocket Rob (Marco Botti/ Seb Sanders) finished fast when runner-up last time, but that race,like all his recent starts, was over 5 furlongs, and we prefer Thebes (Mark Johnston/ Greg Failey), well beaten here last time, but who has won twice in the past over this CD. The 9 1/2 furlongs handicap half an hour later could go to one of the two bottom weights Formidable Guest (Jeff Pearce/ Saleem Golam) and Ella Woodcock (Eric Alston/ Kieren Fox), both of whom have won twice this winter over this CD.