Four meetings today

Four meetings today - 3 over jumps and one on the all-weather. The best racing comes from Sedgefield, where the Durham National over 3 3/4 miles at 17.30 CET is the main event. There are only 8 runners, but most of them have chance in an open race. Both top-weight The Hollinwell (Ferdy Murphy/Tony Kelly) and Bellflower Boy (Dr. Newland/ Charlie Huxley) ran at the Cheltenham Festival last time- the latter over hurdles, but he is better handicapped over fences. We stillorefer the former, who is pretty useful in this grade, while the consistent Night in Milan (Keith and James Reveley) has been racing over 3 miles and is untested over further. Rey Nacarando (Charlie Longsdon/ Andrew Tinkler), pulled up on very heavy going last time, and the lightly-raced Belmore Baron (Sue Smith/ Ryan Mania), an easy winner here over 3 furlongs shorter last time, are others to consider, but we will stick with the top-weight. The novice handicap hurdle here at 17.00 is another decent event and l ooks a rerun of a race run here 11 days ago, which Ebanour (Donald McCain/ Jason Maguire) won from Sublime Talent (Evan Williams/ Paul Moloney) and Cadore (Lucinda Russell/ Peter Buchanan). At the revised weights there should be very little in it this time, but Sublime Talent each way looks the safest bet.

The card at Fontwell is much less interesting. lan KMing nd Cho0c Thonrtrom could b th tm to follow hre. Thy can tak h oning novic hurdle at 15.10 with Medinas, and also have good chances at 15.40 with Habbie Simpson and an hour later with Miss Exhibitionist, although both these races look quite tricky.

Our best bet of the day is the German-bred Der Spieler (JG Coogan/ Davy Russell) in the opening beginners chase at 17.15 at Thurles. He was the best of these over hurdles, and although his chasing record so far is blemished - he has failed to complete several times - he needs only to jump round safely to win this. Other fancies at the Irish meeting are Shifa at 17.45 and Maggie Connolly an hour later, both trained by Willie Mullins and ridden by Ruby Walsh. The Mullins/ Walsh team have another good chance at 19.15 with Lord Gale in the maiden hurdle; he is certainly overdue for a win, but we are not sure he can concede 8 lbs to Shrapnel (Charlie Byrnes/ Davy Russell).

The all-weather fixture at Southwell is very poor. The only race of interest is the 3yo handicap over 6 furlongs at 16.50, in which all 6 runners could win. Half a Billion (Michael Dods/ Lee Topliss) was placed several times without scoring last year, but made a winning debut over this CD for 2012 and can perhaps follow up.