5 poor meetings today

Normal fare for a Monday today, poor racing at Ayr and Wolverhampton (a.w.) this afternoon, and this evening at Windsor and Thirsk, with a mixed meeting in Ireland, where there are 3 flat races and 4 over hurdles at Ballinrobe. The "best" race of the day is the class 3 handicap over 10 furlongs at 18.00 CET at Ayr, where Awake My Soul (David O´Meara/ Julie Burke), a CD winner 2 months ago, has top-weight. However he ran badly on Saturday and we much prefer the more lightly-weighted Kashmir Peak (John Quinn/ Matt O´Connell) -also a decent hurdler- and the only 3yo in the field Desert Revolution (Mark Johnston/ Joe Fanning), who has shown definite promise in his 3 starts so far and was not beaten far in a much tougher handicap at Glorious Goodwood last time. The Johnston stable continues in top form, and so does Sir Mark Prescott, both of whose runners here, Charlotte´s Day at 15.30 and Szabo´s Art at 17.30 (Luke Morris the jockey on both) can make the long journey back to Newm arket with a win under their belts.

O´Meara and Johnston are also in opposition in Wolverhampton´s main event, a handicap over 8 1/2 furlongs at 17.45.´The former saddles top-weight Classic Colori (DH Bergin), who always goes well at this track, but again we prefer the Johnston runner Fraserburgh (Silvestre de Sousa), who has gone up 5 lbs for an easy win at Carlisle a fortnight ago.

All eyes will be on Richard Hughes at Windsor this evening after he rode 5 successive winners at the track yesterday. He has rides in all 6 races and should not go home without a winner or two. He looks almost certain to be champion jockeys again this year, but his main rival Ryan Moore will not give up without a fight and arguably has better rides this evening. In the 10 furlongs handicap at 20.40 Hughes partners the Queen´s Princes´s Trust for Richard Hannon, but at these weights we prefer Moore´s Mount, Jeremy Noseda´s Regal Silk, an easy CD winner 3 weeks ago.

Our main fancy at Thirsk is Angus Og (Elaine Burke/ Joey Haynes) in the 5 furlongs handicap at 20.00. Burke is another trainer in good form and has booked an excellent claimer for this distance specialist. There could be a couple of German-bred winners at Ballinrobe, as we like Apisata (M Torrens/ DM Grant) in the 1 3/4 miles handicap at 19.15 and Alileo (Willie and Emmet Mullins) in the maiden hurdle at 19.50.