Strong Saturday cards

No Grade One races today, but plenty of good racing at several different tracks. The big betting race of the day is the Betfred Classic Chase over 3 miles 5 furlongs at 16.35 CET at Warwick, and with the ground certain to be very testing, this is a real race for specialists. So it is no realk suprise to see 3 past winners line up again, Shotgun Paddy (Emma Lavelle/ Daryl Jacob), who won last year from Carruthers (Mark Bradstock/ Nico de Boinville), Rigadin de Beauchene (Venetia Williams/ RT Dunne), who won in 2013, and West End Rocker (Alan King/ Tom Bellamy, 2011).

Of this Group we definiutely prefer carruthers, who ghoes well on the ground and is now very well handicapped. The obvious dangers are Return Spring (Philip Hobbs/ Richard Johnson) and Hawkes Point (Paul Nicholls/ Sam Twiston-Davies). Earlier Carruthers´ half-brother Flintham runs for the same team in the Grade Two novice hurdle at 16.00; he showed improved form to win at Ascot last time but needs to improve again to figure here, with Shantou Bob (Warren Greatrex/ Gavin Sheehan) the clear form choice. Ex-German Dawn Twister (Lucy Wadham/ Leighton Aspell) looks an interesting each way bet in the long distance handicap hurdle at 15.25; he loves this ground, as we saw at Baden-Baden in 2011 and his trainer is in great form.

Two more ex-Germans running today are Ostland (Charlie Longsdon/ Noel Fehily) at Kempton at 14.00, once runner-up in the Deutsches Derby, and Nexios, third to Novellist in the Union-Rennen (Keith Dalgleish/ Keith Renwick) at 15.50 at Wetherby. We cannot fancy Ostland on this ground, but the going st the Yorkshire track is not so bad and Nexios, though not well handicapped, should get involved.

Another runner with German connections is Dell´Arca (David Pipe/ Tom Scudamore), one of 3 runners from the stable in Kempton´s big handicap hurdle at 15.40; one of the PIpe horses will win and we hope it is the this one! Despite his pedigree, he showed his best form on the heavy when runner-up last year in the Betfred Hurdle. We also fancy the Queen´s Open Hearted (Nicky Henderson/ Barry Geraghty) to win the handicap chase here at 16.15 and complete a double for the stable after Hunt Ball, we hope. wins at 15.10.

There is a decent all-weather card at Lingfield and an international field for the mile conditions race at 15.35, a qualifier for the big Good Friday meeting. Dastarhon (Pia Brandt/ Adam Kirby) comes from France and Captain Joy (Tracy Collins/ Pat Smullen) from Ireland. Both should go well, but it looks a tricky race.