Start of Newcastle´s main meeting

Once again, plenty of low-level racing today, and the main feature is the start of the big 3-day meeting at Newcastle, with the Northumberland Plate due on Saturday. The best race of the day is the Seaton Delaval handicap over a mile at 16.30 CET which looks wide open, with every one of the 8 runners having shown good form this month. Ex-French Baraweez (Brian Ellison/ Dale Swift) has bottom weight and will probably start favourite after winning 2 of his last 3 races. He is certainly less exposed than most of the others, but is up in grade here and meeting much stronger opposition this time. Dubai Dynamo (Ruth Carr/ Peter McDonald) and Norse Blues (David Barron/ Graham Gibbons) were second and fourth in a similar race at Ayr last Saturday, and the same day saw Heavy Metal (Mark Johnston/ Joe Fanning) running out an easy winner at Redcar, for which he has a 6 lbs penalty. He can certainly win again, but our main fancy is Dance and Dance(Ed Vaughan/ Richard Kingscote), 6th in a huge field at Epsom on Derby Day after a very slow start; he has not won for 2 years, but is now well handicapped and if gets off on terms and his jockey can deliver him at the right moment, must gave good prospects here.

Carlisle races again today and although the card is much weaker than yesterday, there are still two interesting maiden races, over 7 furlongs at 16.10 and over 9 furlongs half an hour later. We expect James Doyle to win them both for top Southern trainers and very prominent owners - the former race on the Queen´s Enliven, (Andrew Balding) and the latter on Khalid Abdullah´s Scallop (Sir Michael Stoute). There are plenty of Doyles in racing, and as far as we know, James is not related to the good Irish-born apprentice Joe Doyle, who is riding at the same meeting and might win the apprentice race at 17.40 on David O´Meara´s Dansili Dutch.

Otherwise we shall be interested to see how Sir Mark Prescott´s runners fare today. He had his first runner of 2014 at Windsor on Monday and although the horse did not win, he ran well enough to suggest that the stable should be followed from now on. At Yarmouth this afternoon he saddles Libra Romana at 15.50 and Don´t Be half an hour later, and at Leicester this evening Threetimesalady at 20.10, all with Luke Morris in the saddle.