Mainly Handicaps

Today´s 3 meetings in the U.K. - two on the all-weather at Kempton and Lingfield, and over jumps at Musselburgh- consist mainly of handicaps, and mainly low grade ones at that.

However it is a non-handicap that has the best thing of the day in our opinion- the opening maiden hurdle at 13.45 CET at Musselburgh. John Ferguson has his hurdlers in top form and now saddles Arabic History (Tony McCoy), who runs for the first time over sticks after finishing 1/2 on his 4 bumper starts, some in top company. Assuming he jumps well- which can almost be taken for granted with this team- he looks very hard to beat here. Another runner here who has been first or second on all his starts so far is Desoto County (Donald McCain/ Jason Maguire) in the handicap hurdle at 15.20. However he is coming off a break and with the stable still not firing on all fronts, we would raher wait and see; AP rides Lucky Cody here for Brian Ellison, but he seems very high in the weights for what he has actually achieved, and we prefer stable companion Yesyoucan (Danny Cook) who has been running against better opposition and could be well treated here. Course specialist Titus Bolt (Jim Goldie/Ryan Day) is one of many dangers in the trickiest race of the day.

The two divisions of the 6 furlongs handicap at Kempton will not take much winning and our selections are Zwan Awal (James fanshawe/ Tom Queally) at 17.10 and half an hour later last week´sd CD winner Stellarta (Michael Blanshard/ Steve Drowne) although in the latter race we also respect oldtimer Palace Moon (William Knight/ Jim Crowley), who is on a long losing run but is very well handicapped on his old form.

At Lingfield the mile handicap at 16.00 is thr best betting race, and we expect the two 3yo top-weights Razor Wind (Charlie Appleby/ Shane Gray) and Semaral (Chris Wall/ Martin Lane) to fight out the finish. Both won last time out and look likely improvers.