soft ground at Ayr

The only flat racing in Britain and Ireland today is at Ayr, where the going will be very soft. Under these circumstances, punters should be very careful as the past few days have already thrown up plenty of surrises. The best betting races in our view are the two divisions of the 6 furlongs handicap and at 16.10 CET we think that Sam Nonambulist (Richard Whitaker/ Rab Havlin) could be worth a small each-way bet.

He goes on the ground and has come down in the weights, while the in-form Defence Council (Mel Brittain/ Diran Fentiman) and Green Park (Declan Carroll/ Luke Leadbetter) have both been put up for finishing second last time. In the second division half an hour later we like oldtimer Beckermet (Ruth Carr/ James Sullivan), who loves this ground and is aleways capable of winning in this grade. Fieldgunner Kirkup (David Barron/ Graham Gibbons), who has won his last two races -both on soft ground at Thirsk- is an obvious danger, but faces a stiff task under top weight. German-breds Queen´s Estate (Mark Johnston/ Robert Winston) and Goldmädchen (Keith Dalgleish/ Tom Eaves) could also run well at 17.40 and 18.10 respectively, but neither look very reliable.