6 poor meetings today

As is normal for a Tuesday, the sport on offer is mainly very low grade, with the vast majority of races class 5 or even lower. There are also some very small fields and quite a few non-runners, and the threat of further rain could result in more. The most interesting betting race is the 5 furlongs handicap at Redcar at 17.20 CET. The race is for 4yo´s and up, but most of the runners are older and they include familiar faces like 12yo Tax Free (David and Adrian Nicholls) and 10yo Oldjoesaid (Paul Midgley/ Peter McDonald). They both finished finished behind Bronze Beau (Kristin Stubbs/ Jacob Butterfield) at Thirsk 11 days ago, while Avon Breeze, runner-up in this last year, was also second over CD last week with Jack Luey (Tim Easterby/ David Allan) fourth. Tax Free is an old favourite of ours and we would love to see him win again (for the 17th time, including several group races in his youth); obviously he is not getting any faster at his age, but he keeps his form well enough and is certainly capable of winning off this rating, but the rain is not in his favour. It is surprisingly his first ever run at Redcar, which is close to the Nicholls stable, but we reluctantly pass him over here in favour of Bronze Beau.

The most interesting race at Leicester is the 7 furlongs handicap for 3yo fillies at 16.30. The two top-weights Miss Lillie (Ron Teal/ Oisin Miurphy) and Stosur (Gay Kelleway/ Luke Morris) were both well beaten last time in much better races, but they must both go close in this company. We shall take a chance on Stosur, who won at Cagnes in the winter and has been a non-runner several times recently; we have to assume that the trainer knows what she is doing in running her here. Nirva (Ralph Beckett/ Richard Kingscote) was also outclassed in a listed race last time, and looks the main danger.