Newcastle, Folkestone and Southwell

Once again, very poor racing at today´s 3 meetings, and Newcastle is not certain to go ahead after heavy rain at the weekend and overnight frost. A second inspection is due later this morning. Should racing be on, we expect Thornton Alice (Richard Phillips/ Sean Quinlan), upped in distance, to win the mares novice hurdle at 15.40 CET, while we also fancy Sunday´s easy Hereford winner Decent Lord at 16.40 and course specialist Its Teescomponents at 17.10. Best thing of the day should be Asturienne (Alan King/ Robert Thornton) in the beginners chase at 16.00 Folkestone. She has only 3 moderate opponents and was easily the best of these over hurdles; she ran well enough over fences last time when chasing home th useful Kerada at Newbury and that form is certainly good enough for her to score here. However she will be at a very short price, and a more interesting betting race is the novice hurdle an hour later.

King and Choc have another chance here with last-time-out winner Union Island, who was also quite useful on the flat, and he should hold the other previous winners, but Mr. Muddle (Sheena West/ Jamie Goldstein) has been runner-up on all his hurdles starts and must be placed again, while German-bred Promised Wings (Charlie Gordon/ Colin Bolger), although well beaten on both British starts, could run well at a big price. There are also two German-breds in the handicap hurdle at 17.30, and while Idris appears to have lost form completely, we expect Vacario (Mark Gillard/ Tom Phelan) to run well. He rarely wins but has been in the first 5 on his last 12 starts, and should be in the frame this time.

The card at Southwell on the all-weather is very uninspiring, but we expect the improved Mush Mir (Jim Boyle/ Steven Craine) to complete a quick course hat-trick in the 2 mile handicap at 16.50, while Home (Brendan Powell/ Chris Catlin), all of whose 5 flat wins have come here, should win again at 17.50.