4 meetings today

There has been a lot of rain in southern England and the going at Salisbury and Windsor today will be very soft, with plenty of non-runners as a result. The best race at Salisbury is the conditions event over 7 furlongs at 17.00 CET, in which 3 older horses face 4 3yo´s, two of them owned by Godolphin. Hasopop (Marco Botti/ Paul Hanagan) looks the best of this age group and has been running in top handicaps, but we are not sure that he will get home over this distance and prefer the older runners. Shamaal Nibras (Ismael Mohammed/ Neil Callan) finished just in front of Magic City (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes) in a valuable Ascot handicap 9 days ago, but is now slightly worse off at the weights. He won this race last year (when trained by Hannon) and goes well on the soft, so we hope that he can double up. The handicap over 1 3/4 miles at 18.30 looks wide open, and obviously top-weight Duke of Clarence (Hannon/ Hughes) should come on the short list. However our preference is for Chocala (Alan King/ David Probert), who has a nice weight, goes well on the soft and is from a stable coming into top form.

While some top riders are at Salisbury, Saeed bin Suroor sends his main jockey Silvestre de Sousa to Windsor and the combination can land a double with Musaddas in the maiden race at 16.05 and the once-raced Muhtaris in the 3yo handicap at 18.10; however this latter race is quite tricky and we also like Blighty (Lady Cecil/ James Doyle), who is part-owned by Hoppegarten boss Gerhard Schöningh and is out of a Group-winning Monsun mare. The ground is better at Musselburgh where Mark Johnston can continue on his winning ways. We hope that top-weight Discay at 16.45 and Skytrain at 17.50 will oblige; both of them are ridden by Joe Fanning and both keep on winning despite rising all the time in the weights. In Ireland there is N.H. racing at Limerick. where most of the races are part of a jockeys´ competition, with the riders drawn by lot. These are gimmicks and we find that such races are not always good betting propositions, so we shall leave them alone.

Salisbury - betting forecast:
1. Race: Tullia - Marmarus - Baker Man
2. Race: Tea In Transvaal - Darting - Nissaki Kasta
3. Race: Dutch Romance - Joohaina - Aertex
4. Race: Admirable Art - Perfect Pastime - Strategic Action
5. Race: Hasopop - Magic City - Mar Mar
6. Race: Munhamer - Ronaldinho - Squeeze My Brain
7. Race: Stomachion - Mesmerized - Kastini
8. Race: Centred - Sizzler - Duke Of Clarence