Ascot gearing up for tomorrow

Plenty of racing today with 8 meetings (2 of them in Ireland) and the standard is generally better than was the case earlier in the week. Ascot is gearing up for one of its biggest days of the year tomorrow but today´s card is also good enough, and is headed by the listed race for fillies and mares over a mile at 16.55 CET.In theory this should go to Euro Charline (Marco Botti/ Andrea Atzeni), who was fifth in the 1,000 Guineas and a close third in the Coronation Stakes, by far the best pieces of form on offer here. Kiyoshi (Charlie Hills/ Jamie Spencer) was well behind her at Ascot, but the stable is now in better form and she was pretty smart last year. Woodland Aria (John Gosden/ William Buick) looks best of the older runners. Ascot also stages two decent handicaps, over 2 miles at 16.20 and over 10 furlongs at 17.30. Mark Johnston, currently in great form, has an excellent record in handicaps at this track and won both these races last year. It would be no great surprise if he were to repeat the feat today. His runners in the stayers race are Sir Frank Morgan (Buick) and Maid in Rio (Silvestre de Sousa), the only 3yo in the field. They are both very progressive and although they have shot up the weights, must hold good chances here, with Boite (Peter Chapple-Hyam/ Rab Havlin) third in last year´s Queens Vase over this CD, but only seen twice since- possibly the main danger. In the later race Johnston relies on top-weight Salutation, ridden by good claimer Mike Murphy; if he can repeat his performance at the Royal meeting, he would also have an obvious chance.

There is also a listed race for fillies and mares, this time over 10 furlongs, at 20.30 at York´s evening meeting. Tasaday (Saeed bin Suroor/ Kieren Fallon) is the one to beat here. She was trained by André Fabre last year and had good form in the top French fillies races, and also ran well in Dubai in the winter; she has not been out since running unplaced in the Duty Free, but faces much lesser opposiiton here. Regardez (Ralph Beckett/ Jim Crowley) looks the main danger; she won a similar race last time at Newcastle after running down in the field in the Oaks. Ex-German Tahira (John Quinn/ Phillip Makin) won two BBAG sales races for Uwe Stech last year; she could run into the money, but we would be surprised i she were good enough to win this.

Ascot - betting forecast:
1. Race: Malabar - Crystal Malt - Mistrusting
2. Race: Bronze Maquette - Alpine Affair - Be Bold
3. Race: Elidor - Maid In Rio - Sir Frank Morgan
4. Race: Euro Charline - Kiyoshi - Woodland Aria
5. Race: Salutation - Zain Eagle - Double Discount
6. Race: Iffranesia - Atlantis Crossing - Bajan Bear