5 poor meetings today

Down to earth with a bump today, with low level racing all round - at this afternoon´s fixtures at Chepstow and Lingfield (Polytrack) as well as this evening at Thirsk and Windsor with evening jumps racing from Kilbeggan (Ireland) as well.

Perhaps the most interesting event is the 3yo maiden at 17.25 CET at Lingfield which looks a match between Telefono (Amanda Perrett/ James Doyle) and Wrood (James Fanshawe/ Shane Kelly), both of whom have been runner-up on all their few starts so far. The former runs in the colours of Khalid Abdullah, but certainly cannot be mentioned in the same breath as Kingman and co. His pedigree is also less than exciting; he is a half-brother to Intercom, a poor handicapper in Germany a couple of years ago, and to Beep, who runs in a poor race at Windsor this evening. Wrood was runner-up over this CD on her debut 6 weeks ago; as a filly she gets 5 lbs from Telefono, which might just swing the balance.

At Windsor also the most interesting race is the 3yo maiden at 20.10 over the same distance of a mile, which has runners from some of the top stables. Among them Mountain Kingdom (Sir Mark Prescott/ Luke Morris), who is amazingly his trainer´s first runner of the season. We do not recommend betting on him, as he is probably just on a sighting mission, but his running should be monitored as it well give us a guide to the prospects of Sir Mark´s runners in the coming days. A better bet could be Polybius in the 6 furlongs handicap for 3yo´s an hour later. He was an easy winner over this CD 3 weeks ago and on his debut was only just behind Telefono at Newbury, so the running of the earlier Lingfield race could give us a clue.