3 listed races and Kerry National

Much more classy racing today, with listed races at Sandown, Yarmouth and Listowel. Yarmouth stage one of their best cards of the year and the fillies listed race over 10 furlongs at 16.20 CET looks very competitive. Nouriya (Sir Michael Stoute/ Richard Mullen) won this last year, but the stable form remains poor, while Principal Role (Sir Henry Cecil/ Tom Queally) is top-rated but must give weight away all round.

Best of the older fillies should be Modeyra (Saeed bin Suroor/ Ted Durcan), but we will take a chance with Tenby Lady (Sir Mark Prescott/ Steve Donohoe) on the grounds that 3yo´s are unduly favoured by the weight-for-age scale at the moment. The listed race at Sandown is over a mile at 17.05. We have not forgotten the way Emarald Commander (bin Suroor/ Frankie Dettori) won at Baden-Baden a year ago and he can possibly defeat the likely favourite King Torus (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes), a smart 2yo last year and now back in form. The 3yo filly Lay Time (Andrew Balding/ David Probert) looks dangerous off a very light weight.

At Listowel, on the fourth day of the Harvest Festival, they go over 1 1/2 miles and it should pay to concentrate on the big stables. John Oxx, currently in great form, has 3 runners, with Johnny Murtagh choosing Swamp Fire, while both of Aidan O´Brien´s runners deserve respect -Freedom (Seamus Heffernan) and Amazing Beauty (Colm O´Donoghue). German-bred Glamorous (Jessica Harrington/ Fran Berry) has a chance, but our preference is for top-weight Address Unknown (Dermot Weld/ Pat Smullen).

However the big betting race of the day, and also the most valuable event, is the Kerry National over 3 miles at 17.10. This looks wide open but has always been a good race for course specialists. Alfa Beat (Shark Hanlon/ Barry Geraghty) won it last year from Dancing Tornado (Michael Hourigan/ Tony McCoy), but both have up a lot in the weights, as has Blazing Tempo, Ruby Walsh´s choice from 3 Willie Mullins runners. Ponmeoath has run in this race 4 times , winning in 2007 and 2008, and although he is no spring chicken he looks nicely handicapped now and will appreciate the heavy ground.