5 poor meetings today

The week between the Derby and Royal Ascot is always very slow and we can expect little in the way of top class sport in the next few days. Today´s 5 meetings, flat racing at Salisbury this afternoon and Lingfield this evening, and N.H. racing at Fontwell this afternoon and Worcester this evening, as well as an all hurdles card in Ireland at Roscommon is very low key.

The most interesting race of the day is the fillies handicap over 10 furlongs at 16.55 CET at Salisbury, in which 7 of the 9 runners are 3yo´s and we certainly expect the winner to come from this group. John Gosden saddles two runners, Seagull (William Buick), who is by Sea the Stars who sired the stable´s Oaks winner, and Likelihood, partnered by the owner´s retained jockey James Doyle. Seagull won well last time at Newmarket, but we are not sure why she is down in trip now. Crystal Nymph (Richard Hannon/ Richard Hughes) won a handicap over this CD just under a month ago, with Rosehill Artist (Charlie Hills/ Jamie Spencer) third and now 5 lbs better off. A>ll of These could all go well, but the one to beat is surely Godolphin´s Hidden Gold (Saeed bin Suroor/ Silvestre de Sousa) who won a maiden over this CD on the same day. She certainly has the best pedigree, being by Shamardal out of Melikah, who was placed in both the English and Irish Oaks and was a daughter of Arc winner Urban Sea, making her a half-sister to Galileo and Sea the Stars.

At Lingfield the first 4 races are on turf - getting firmer as the weather has improved - and the last 3 on polytrack. The 7 1 /2 furlongs handicap at 18.55 is a pretty dreadful race, but we shall stay true to Lutine Charlie (Pat Eddery/ Tom Queally), who we fancied last week at Brighton; he led a furlong out, but was run out of it by Last Minute Lisa (Sylvester Kirk/ Richard Hughes, one of several jockeys riding at both flat meetings), however we hope that he can reverse that form today on 6 lbs better terms.

Over jumps, we think that Dollar Bill (Nick Gifford/ Tom Cannon) has a decent each-way chance in the handicap hurdle at 15.20 at Fontwell, while Barton Heather (Neil Mulholland/ Michael Byrne) has an obvious chance of following up last week´s CD win here at 18.10; as that was a conditionals´ race he has no penalty.

The handicap hurdle over 2 miles 7 furlongs at 21.35 is the best betting race at Worcester. Bob Keown (Rebecca Curtis/ Tony McCoy) and Foggys Wall (Paul Nicholls/ Sam Twiston-Davies) will probably be the favourites, as they are both in good form and represent powerful stables. However they do not seem well handicapped, and we shall take a chance on Princely Player (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson), a winner over fences in the winter but capable of also winning off this mark over sticks.