Nottingham, Kempton and Navan

Three flat meetings today, Nottingham on very soft ground this afternoon, Kempton on the all-weather this evening and Navan in Ireland. The most interesting events at Nottingham are the 2yo maidens, over 6 furlongs at 16.10 CET and over a mile half an hour later. In the former event, Enlightening (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes) and Lowawatha (Ralph Beckett/ Jim Crowley) are the obvious form picks after both finishing runner-up last time, but we are also curious to see how Poppet´s Joy (Andy Haynes/ Robert Havlin) goes - she is a half-sister to Overdose. In the mile race, Audacious (Sir Michael Stoute/ Ryan Moore) looks the best bet of the day. He was 4th of 15 in a very strong maiden at Doncaster, and the winner of that race scored by 30 lengths yesterday. Moore can double up on Jeremy Noseda´ s Alfonso the Wise in the 10 furlongs maiden at 17.40.

The races for 2y´s also look to be the most interesting events at Kempton, and we expect Karate (Mark Johnston/ Kieren Fallon), now brought back to 5 furlongs at 19.00, and Signs in the Sand (Saeed bin Suroor/ Frankie Dettori), third in a much better race last time, at 19.30, both to prove successful. The mile nursery handicap at 21.00 looks wide open, but despite the presence of two Godolphin runners, Jaaryah (Michael Jarvis/ Philip Robinson) skould be the one to beat after winning very easily here on her debut.

There are some huge fields at Navan, including 20 runners in the maiden race over 2 miles for 4yo´s and up at 16.15. Normally we would expect a field of plodders in this kind of race, but in fact there are some useful performers entered, such as Hidden Universe (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen), winner last time out of the Champion Bumper at Punchestown and smart hurdler Rare Bob (Dessie Hughes/ BJ Cooper). German-bred Quartetto (Mervyn Torrens/ Paul Townend) is also no slouch but will probably have to settle for a minor place, but heavy ground would be an advantage. Otherwise we expect to see Aidan O´Brien take the two maiden races for 2yo´s - he has 3 runners in each- and the conditions race over 10 furlongs at 18.15 with German-bred Don Carlos (Johnny Murtagh), not seen out since flopping in two classic trials in the spring, but facing much lesser opposition now.