4 meetings today

There is no all-weather flat racing this afternoon, just Kempton this evening, but with good weather everywhere there should be no problems for the 3 N.H. meetings, Ffos Las in Wales, Fairyhouse in Ireland, and Doncaster in England, and the last-named has arguably the best card on offer. The card opens with a decent novice hurdle at 14.05 CET, in which Barenger (Nicky Henderson/ Andrew Tinkler) looks like starting awarm favourite; he ran out an easy winner on his only racecourse appearance, a bumper at Newbury 2 months ago, and is regarded as a big prospect. Another hurdling debutant Theology (Steve Gollings/ Brian Hughes) looks the main danger, as he was listed class on the flat for Jeremy Noseda.

There follows a 4yo hurdle, which should go to Art History (John Ferguson/ Jack Quinlan), whose team is in great form; Gottany O´s (Donald McCain/ Jason Maguire) is the danger here. McCain and Maguire can follow up with Edge of Town in the novice chase at 15.15, but Henderson´s Loose Preformer (Jerry McGrath) is the big threat here. Henderson has another good chance with Arctic Actress in the handicap hurdle at 15.10; he was a CD winner last time and goes well for jockey RJ Killoran, however we are also interested here an top-weight Corkage (Keith and James Reveley), who was going like a winner when falling two out last time. There are the usual big fields at the Irish meeting at Fairyhouse. The most interesting runner here is Our Monty (Willie Mullins/ Ruby Walsh), who runs in the rated hurdle at 14.00. He looked a major prospect when winning his last 3 races in 2009, but has not run since, but that need not be a problem with these connections. Otherwise we hope to see Germa n-bred Aitmatov (Noel Meade/ Paul Carberry) run well in the beginners chase at 14.30. He was the best of these over hurdles and although he has so far failed to win over fences, he ran well enough over this CD last time to suggest that he can score today.


The fields are much smaller at Ffos Las and tha quality is not inspiring. Mountainous (Nigel and Sam Twiston-Davies) seems much improved and can defy a sharp rise in the weights in the handicap hurdle at 14.50.
This evening´s Kempton meeting looks very tricky for punters. The best race is the 5 furlongs handicap at 18.15, which is wide open.Our suggestion is bottom weight Earlsmedic (Stuart Williams/ Ryan Clark) each way.