4 meetings today

After the high class racing, glamour and excitement of Royal Ascot, it´ s back to more normal fare today with Pontefract staging the only flat racing, and low-level N.H. meetings at Hereford, Hexham and Gowran Park (Ireland). Easily the best race of the day is the listed event over 1 1/2 miles at 1710 CET. The problem here is that many of these runners are better at other distances, e.g. Distant Memories (Tom Tate/ Jamie Spencer), a 10 furlongs specialist, while Red Cadeaux (Ed Dunlop/ Tom McLaughlin) and the Queen´s Free Agent (Richard Hannon/ Jimmy Fortune) have been running in top staying races. Godolphin´ s La de Two (Saeed bin Suroor/ Ted Durcan) is an unknown quantity, having last run without much success in Meydan. Red Cadeaux has been tried over various distances, but he won last time over this distance at Hamilton with todays jockey on board and we make him a tentative selection.

The handicaps at Pontefract look tricky, but with the Hughie Morrison stable in good form at Ascot this week, we hope that his Cosimo de Medici (Fortune) can continue the stable´s good run over 2 1/4 miles at 17.40, while Zennor (Tom Dascombe/ Richard Kingscote) can take the 10 furlongs race at 16.40 under bottom weight. He was runner-up only on Friday with his owner in the saddle and is now ridden by the stable jockey.

Paul Nicholls is always very quiet at this time of year, but he saddles two runners at Hereford and they both have winning chances: Round Tom (Ian Popham) at 15.20 and Earth Planet (Daryl Jacob) at 17.20. At Hexham the Irish trainers Gordon Elliott and James Lambe could be the trainers to follow; they have fancied runners in almost every race.

At Gowran Park Tony Martin could be the trainer to land a double, with Pires (Paul Carberry) and Uncle Taffy( Ruby Walsh) in the two handicap hurdles at 17.05 and half an hour later. Best bet here is Magical Memoir (Jessica Harrington/ Barry Geraghty) in the 4yo hurdle at 16.35