3 meetings today

Autumn is definitely here as can be seen from today´s cards from Leicester and Newcastle, large but mainly low-level fields of maidens and poor handicappers. The 2yo maidens look very tricky with lots of well-bred but lightly-raced types from big stables, but the 7 furlongs conditions race for juveniles at 15.10 CET looks more interesting, even with only 6 runners, all of them winners.

Mabaany (William Haggas/ Richard Hills) won by 10 lengths last time and is the likely favourite, while Newnton Lodge (Roger Charlton/ James Doyle) was a promising winner of his only start, but we give slight preference to Cravat (Mark Johnston/ Silvestre de Sousa). The conditions race over a mile for older fillies at 17.10 should go to Godolphin, who have two runners, both of whom finished last in much better company last time. Zoowra (Mahmood at Zarooni/ de Sousa), who looked very promising last year for Michael Jarvis, has not been seen out aince the French 1,000 Guineas and is preferred to Ragsar (Saeed bin Suroor/ Richard Mullen), well beaten at Newmarket 18 days ago.

The card at Newcastle is not nearly so interesting, though again we have large fields of well-bred maidens. The 2 divisions of the 6 furlongs handicap look too difficult, but the 2 mile handicap at 18.00 in our opinion offers a good betting opportunity in Riptide (Michael Scudamore/ Jamie Goldstein), who was a close fourth last time against better opposition at York.

They go over jumps at Huntingdon today and our old friend Ostland (Charlie Longsdon/ Andrew Tinkler), once runner-up in the German Derby for Peter Schiergen, has top weight in the 3 mile handicap chase at 16.50. He weakened quickly last time at Market Rasen, but this is much easier race and we feel that he can get back on the winning trail. Otherwise we think that Nicky Richards could land a double here with Parc des Princes (Dougie Costello) at 15.20 and Winter Alchemy (Brian Harding) at 17.20 - although the latter should watch out for Go Amwell (John Jenkins/ Timmy Murphy), who won the race last year.