Last chance for Tax Free

Very little about which to get excited in today´s 4 meetings in the U.K. and a mixed meeting in Ireland at Roscommon, with 4 flat races followed by 3 over hurdles. The hurdle race over 2 1/2 miles at 21.10 CET has only 4 runners, but they are all quite useful and we hope to see Waaheb (Dermot Weld/ Mark Walsh) get back on the winning trail after his narrow defeat at Cork last time; Seefood (Dessie Hughes/ Barry Geraghty), a winner over fences 9 days ago, looks the main threat if he also adapts to the smaller obstacles.

In the U.K. there are mainly low grade handicaps, none of them better than class 4.The 5 furlongs handicap at Thirsk at 17.45 looks quite competitive with 15 runners, however most of them find it hard to win. The obvious exception is the 12yo Tax Free (David and Adrian Nicholls), who has clocked up 16 wins in his long career, including some at a much better level; he is expected to be retired after today´s race and obviously everyone would love to see him go out with another victory, but on his latest form this looks unlikely, as his recent runs have all been very poor and the soft ground is also against him. Gowanharry (Michael Dods/ Paul Mulrennan) has not won for over a year, but has been very consistent and looks the most logical winner here.

If there is a decent performer running today. it can only be Godolphin´s lightly-raced History Book (Charlie Appleby/ William Buick) in the fillies handicap which closes Windsor´s evening card at 21.00. She has a lot of weight but is potentially miuch better class than tese opponents, ofwhomlast-tme-out winner Bold Lass (David Lanigan/ Ted Durcan) is probably the best.