Leicester, Plumpton and Wolverhampton

After the highlights at Cheltenham, today´s racing is very much an anti-climax. There are mainly small fields at the two N.H. meetings, not a single double figure field et either Leicester or Plumpton, and several events with 6 or fewer runners. At Plumpton, the novice chase at 14.30 CET could be the most interesting event. Bouggler (Emma Lavelle/ Sam Thomas) has easily the highest rating here, having run in some top races, but he usually came up short and could go down today to Have You Seen Me (Nigel Twiston-Davies/ Tom Molloy), who won in good style last time. Twiston-Davies has another decent chance with Frontier Spirit (Paddy Brennan) in the novice hurdle half an hour later, but here we just prefer the other penalised runner Paint the Clouds (Warren Greatrex/ Leighton Aspell). In fact it could pay to follow Aspell today, as he also has good prospects on German-bred Aviador (Lucy Wadham) in the opening novice hurdle at 14.00, Mister Pink for Richard Rowe in the 3 1/4 mi le handicap chase at 15.30 and also two runners for Oliver Sherwood, Abey m´Boy in the handicap chase at 15.30 and Global Power in the concluding bumper.

At Leicester, Williams Wishes (Evan Williams/ Paul Moloney), who won nicely on his fencing debut, can follow up in the novice chase at 15.20, while the handicap hurdle at 15.50 looks quite tricky. Numide (Rod Millmann/ Tom Scudamore) has often disappointed, but surely must be able to get involved at this level, while we also like Karky Schultz (James Eustace/ Felix de Giles), whose dam won the German 1,000 Guineas.

At Wolverhampton, the best race is the 5 furlongs handicap 17.10. Piscaen (Tommy Keddy/ Adam Kirby) is in great form and has won his last 2 races, but is not certain to give weight away all round. We prefer Lenny Bee (David Brown/ Jim Crowley), third to him last time and now 4 lbs better off, and Lost in Paris (Tim Easterby/ Graham Gibbons), just touched off in a similar race at Southwell last time. One top weight we do expect to win is Red Kestrel (Kevin Ryan/ Julie Burke) in the 2 miles handicap at 16.40. He just failed to make all this CD last time, but can score this time.