N.H. racing at Hereford, Hexham and Gowran Park (Ireland)

There are some quite large fields at today´s 3 .H. meetings, but summer jumping is rarely very competitive. At Hereford, the most interesting race could be the mares handicap hurdle at 17.20 CET, in which three recent winners cross swords- Letham Island (Tony Carroll/ Lee Edwards), Ruby Crown (Kim Bailey/ Sean Quinlan) and Miss Saffron (Sue Gardner/ Aidan Coleman), with slight preference for the first-named.

Evan Williams has his string in good form and can land a double with the consistent Acrai Rua (Paul Moloney) in the beginners chase at 17.50 and half an hour later with Ajman (Donal Fahy), who was still in contention when unseating his rider last time. Trainer Gary Moore does well on both codes and scored his first ever Royal Ascot winner yesterday, when ex-German Bergo won the Queen Alexandra, ridden by son Ryan. He can follow up here with another ex-German Weststern in the 2 mile handicap chase at 18.50, this time with his eldest son Jamie in the saddle.

Donald McCain and his stable jockey Jason Maguire look the team to follow at Hexham. They have good chances with Always Bold in the novice chase at 16.30, Danny Zuko in the handicap hurdle at 17.00 and top-weight Our Jim in the handicap chase half an hour later.

There is an all-hurdles card at the Irish jumps meeting at Gowran Park. The race for 4yo´s at 16.35 looks the most interesting event, with Cabernet Sauvignon (Gordon Elliott/ Barry Geraghty) and Saponara (Dessie Hughes/ DP Kennedy) in opposition.