Epsom starts 2014 season today

The Epsom April fixture is not as important as it used to be, but the Investec Derby Trial over 10 furlongs at 15.50 CET is still an inzteresting race, though it is a Long time since it jhad any bearing on the Derby itself.- Only 2 of today´s 9 runners are even entered in the classic - Hartnell (Mark Johnston/ Silvestre de Sousa) and Signposted (Andrew Balding/ David Probert). Hartnell, who has been supplemented for the Derby is top-rated after winning 3 races last year and finishing third in a French Group One, easily the best form on offer here. All his wins have been on soft ground, so today´s conditions will be no problem - but punters should check for non-runners in the other races, as plenty have been pulled out after the heavy rain last night. Balding and John Gosden have won the past 4 runnings of this race, but despite the good stable form, we we don´t fancy Gosden´s two here. Signposted must have a chance, and so does the Godolphin runner Moontime, a Sea the Stars gelding who won his only start on soft last year. However we do expect Gosden to take the 3yo maiden at 17.00 with D´Avignon (William Buick).

The remainder of the card is composed of 4 very tricky handicaps, and despite the non-runners they are all very open. Our very tentative suggestions are Fair Value (Simon Dow/ Hayley Turner) at 14.45, Red Runawaya (Ed Dunlop/ Ryan Moore) at 15.20, Resurge at 16.25 and Killing Time (Ralph Beckett/ Jim Crowley ) at 17.35.

The other meeting of interest is at Perth, the start of the 3 day fixture which is one of the best Scottish N.H.meetings. Unfortunately there are some small fields and betting opportunities are limited. We expect German-bred Cool Baranca (Dianne and Emma Sayer) to run well at a decent price in the handicap hurdle at 17.25; his form figures are awful but we runs his best races here and is a real CD specialist.