4 meetings left

The loss of Ayr has of course reduced today´s possibilities and any loss of the next two days would be a disaster for Scottish racing, as this is their top flat meeting of the year. We are left with relatively harmless cards at Yarmouth and Pontefract, evening racing on the all-weather at Kempton and the fourth day of the Listowel Harvest Festival in Ireland. Top event at Yarmouth is the 1 3/4 mile handicap at 17.20 CET, in which we expect the 3yo´s to hold the whip hand. MOntaser (David Simcock/ Franny Nortopn) and Mawaqeet (Sir Michael Stoute/ Paul Hanagan) are lightly-raced types that look capable of further improvement, while Modernism (Mark Johnstpon/ Jieren Fallon, a Monsun colt, looks dangerous off bottom weoght. However on form the winner should be Repeater (Sir Mark Prescott/ Chris Catlin); he has only ever won twice, most recently a year ago, but has been in the first 4 on 11 if his 12 career starts, and last week was a close fourth in the Doncaster Cup. He has been raised a stone for that performance but races off his old mark today; this does not always work out in practice, but in theory he should therefore be a good thing. Prescott and Catlin also have a chance of doubling up with Between Us in the following race, a fillies handicap over 1 mile 3 furlongs, but this looks very tricky.

At Pontefract we hope that Misplaced Fortune (Nigel Tinkler/ Dale Swift) can repeat his 2011 victory in the 6 furlongs handicap at 17.00. He is up in the weoigjhts, but ran a good race at Doncaster last week. The two bottom-weights Love Island (Richard Whitaker/ Paul Quinn) and Meandmyshadow (AD Brown/ Robert Winston) look the main dangers.
Frankie Dettori is riding at Kempton this evening, where he has 3 mounts for Saeed bin Suroor: the debutant Ehtedaam in the maiden race at 19.40 Masteroftherolls in a conditions race at 21.10 and Almaas in the 3yo handicap at 21.40; Godolphin have a tremendous strike rate here and we would not be surprised to see all three run well. Otherwise we will be interested to see how one-time Schlenderhan classic hope Tusculum (Barney Curley/ Daragh O´Donoghoe) runs in the 2 mile handicap at 20.40; he is on an amazingly low mark but has not run for over 3 years.

Another horse hoping to repeat his 2011 win is Princeton Plains who has top weight in the main event at Listowel, a 2 mile handicap hurdle at 17.35. Eddie Harty´s 6yo is the choice of Tony McCoy from 3 runners owned by JP McManus and must have good prospects; bottom weight Dara Tango (Tony Martin/ Ruby Walsh) could be the main danger. Walsh should in any case win the beginners chase half an hour earlier on Willie Mullins` Back in Focus.