Listowel meeting continues

Once again we have poor racing in the U.K. but much better sport in Ireland where the Listowel mixed meeting continues. The 2 mile handicap hurdle for 4yo´s at 18.10 CET is the most valuable race of the day and has attracted quite a competitive field. AP McCoy is here to partner Charles O´Brien´s Shutter Island, who has won his last two races but faces better opposition this time. He gets quite a lot of weight from Orgiglo Bay(JC McConnell/ Kevin Sexton), who was placed at the Cheltenham Festival, and McKinley (Willie Mullins/ Paul Townend), who has won last two races in good style, The latter defeated Denis Hogan´s Ridestan at Galway, but at these weights we choose the last-named to score in a tricky race. Mullins and Townend can however take the novice chase at 17.40 with Devil´s Bride, who looks very promising. Despite the name, this is a gelding, and after winning two bumpers and a hurdle race, he is undefeated after two races over fences and looks a possible future star. He has to concede weight all round here, but we hope he is good enough.

The U.K. racing is very weak. Yarmouth starts a 3-day-Festival Meeting, but fields are very small and the quality poor. The most interesting event is the 6 furlongs conditions race at 18.30, where most of the 6 runners are formerly smart performers but are now out of form, for example Khubala (Hugo Palmer/ William Buick), sixth in the Goldene Peitsche last year, or Rex Imperator (William Haggas/ Andrea Atzeni), who won the Stewards Cup, or Krypton Factor (George Peckham, Luke Morris), who has run several good races at Meydan. However our choice is CD specialist Royal Rock (Chris Wall/ Ted Durcan), who has won this race twice before; he is 10, but ran well enough in a similar race at Doncaster to suggest that he can score again here.