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Back home after almost a week in Paris and we have to say the standard of the racing at today´s 5 tracks is lower than it was at Longchamp at the weekend. This is especially true of Brighton and Catterick this afternoon, where 15 of the 16 races are class 5 or 6, the exception being the 2yo handicap at 16.30 CET at the Yorkshire track. Mark Johnston saddles 2 of the 8 runners and his King of Macedon (Adrian Nicholls) looks the main hope after making all to win at Ripon on his debut 10 days ago; that probably was no great race, but he has been given a fair mark and can win here.

Johnston also has runners at Leicester, where the racing is of much better quality. He saddles An Chiullain (Kieren Fallon) in the first division of the maiden race for 2yo fillies which opens at the card at 15.10. She has the best form and has finished in the money on all her 5 starts, but it would be no surprise to see some of the less-exposed fillies, such as Amaseena (Roger Varian/ Ryan Moore) or Maria Bella (Charlie Appleby/ Silvestre de Sousa), who both ran well enough on their debuts, do much better this time. We definitely expect Godolphin to take the second division half an hour later, where they have two very well-bred debutantes entered- Alpine Storm (Appleby/ Martin Lane) and Arabian Beauty (Saeed bin Suroor/ de Sousa). Appleby and de Sousa team up again the conditions race for 2yo´s at 16.40 with Miner´s Lamp and this one should score again judging by the way he won at Sandown after a very slow start. Johnston and Fallon could be on the scorecard with My History in the 3yo 1 1/2 mile handicap at 16.40, but here we just prefer top-weight Hamelin (Lady Cecil/ Richard Hughes).

It is unusual for Godolphin to have runners in 5 furlongs handicaps, but that is the case at Wolverhampton this evening and their Port Alfred (Appleby/ de Sousa) could be the answer to the very tricky race at 19.40.

There is Irish jumping today at Tipperary and we expect a German-bred winner in the opening maiden hurdle at 14.55, with both Arctic Fire (Willie Mulloins/ Ruby Walsh) and Santarius (Tony and Danny Mullins) engaged. The former is by Soldier Hollow and has been heavily backed, but we have not forgotten the strong form shown in Germany last year when trained by Paul Harley and make him the selection.