5 poor meetings today

For a Friday, today´s cards are very weak, with low level handicaps dominating. 7 out of 8 races at both Haydock and Brighton and 6 out of 8 at Chepstow are handicaps. Easily the best races are at Haydock, although winners are hard to find. Willbeme (Neil `Bycroft/ Adam Beschizza) may be able to complete a hat-trick in the first division of the 6 furlongs handicap at 16.35 CET, he won nicely over CD last time and although this is a better race, he can score again. The second division at 17.10 can go to Piddle´s Power (Ed Mcmahon/ Neil Farley), who can reverse Nottingham form with Jade (Ollie Pears/ Le Topliss) on slightly better terms with a good claimer aboard. The 10 furlongs handicap at 17.45 looks difficult, but we expect the 3y´s to come out on top; Prussian (Mark Johnston/ Franny Norton) is the likely favourite after his strong performance at Sandown last Saturday, but we prefer Angel Gabrial (Ian Williams/ Graham Lee), who has bottom weight now that the two below him h ave dropped out, and won well at Newmarket last time. Strangely enough there are no 3yo´s in the 7 furlongs handicap half an hour later; this looks wide open but we hope nicely-named Mr. David (Jamie Osborne/ Leonna Mayor), runner-up on the all-weather last week, can take this.

The racing at Brighton and Chepstow is of a very low standard. After we did well with German-breds yesterday, we suggest The Lemonpie (Brendan Powell senior and junior) in the 1 1/2 mile handicap at 19.05 at the Welsh track. The Next Desert gelding was a moderate handicapper in Germany and has raced exclusively over jumps since being sold to the U.K. However he is much improved over hurdles this year and can win from a very low rating here; main danger is Korngold (John Dunlop/ Chris Catlin), owned by Benny Andersson of ABBA fame, whose only win came over this CD but is generally very unreliable.

Kempton this evening is also pretty awful, but there is some half-decent jumping from Kilbeggan in Ireland, where Willie Mullins might land a double with Blazing Tempo at 18.10, ridden by nephew Emmet, and Shakervilz, ridden by son Paddy, at 19.10; however both will probably start at very cramped odds.