Good card at Sandown this evening

By far the best racing at today´s 6 meetings in the U.K. and Ireland is to be seen this evening at Sandown Park, where we have probably the best evening card of the entire season, featuring two Group races and two listed events. The Henry II Stakes over 2 miles at 20.15 CET is the top race and is an important trial for the Gold Cup; indeed Colour Vision (Saeed bin Suroor/ Silvestre de Sousa) won the Royal Ascot showpiece last year. he is one of 3 Godolphin runners, the others being Cavalryman (Mikael Barzalona), who however would not want any more rain, and Ley Hunter (Kieren Fallon). Coloiur Vision is just about top-rated here, but he has not run since putting up a very poor effort at Ascot in October, before which he was third in the Prix du Cadran, behind runner-up High Jinx (James Fanshawe/ Graham Lee), who finished last season with 4 second places, including to Times Up (Ed Dunlop/ Ryan Moore) in the Doncaster Cup, when the latter was still trained by Ed´s father John. L ightly-raced 4yo Model Pupil (Charlie Hills/ Richard Hughes) is trying this distance for the first time, but it is hoped that he will also make up into a decent Cup performer.

French raider Gloomy Sunday (Christophe Ferland/ Olivier Peslier), owned by the Boss, is another 4yo but, with all due respect, his form does not look good enough. This is a tricky race and should be watched for Golf Cup clues; Coilour Vision seems the most likely winner, but we would hold our fire. The Brigadier Gerard Stakes over 10 furlongs at 20.50 has only 5 runners, and probably lies between Danadana (Luca Cumani/ Fallon) and Main Sequence (Dabvid Lanigan/ Ted Durcan). The latter started by winning his first 4 races and was then runner-up to Camelot in the Derby, but has failed to shine since. he is still top-rated and receives 3 lbs from Danadana, but we still prefer ther latter, who was a very easy winner in this grade at Chester 3 weeks ago.

There are also small fields in tjhe listed races, for 2yo´s over 5 furlongs at 19.40, which could go to Steventon Star (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes- the team that has won this race 4 times in the last 6 seasons), and for 3yo´s over a mlle at 21.20, where any of the 5 runners could win. All of them could well make up into Group race performers by the end of the season, and our preference is for the unbeaten Queensberry Rules (William Haggas/ Fallon), and Mango Diva (Sir Michael Stoute/ Moore), the only filly in the field. Possibly she can take advantage of her 5 lbs sex allowance, but once again, this is a race to watch for future reference than to bet heavily on today.

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Tight Lipped - Rezwaan - Tafawuk
2. Race: Steventon Star - Rizeena - Eastern Impact
3. Race: Colour Vision - High Jinx - Cavalryman
4. Race: Danadana - Main Sequence - Mukhadram
5. Race: Ebn Arab - Montiridge - Queensberry Rules
6. Race: Spa`S Dancer - Kakatosi - Forgive