Mainly handicaps

6 meetings today, all flat racing, but once again mainly handicaps, the best of which are run this afternoon at Haydock. There are some potentially smart 3yo´s running over a mile at 16.10 CET, but top-weight Bartholomew Fair (Luca Cumani/ Adam Kirby), who is closely related to last week´s Derby winner Golden Horn, has clearly the best form and we think that he can concede the weight here. Half an hour later we have older handicappers running over the same trip, and this time we go for the bottom-weight Express Himself (Ed McMahon/ Ryan Moore), who is very consistdnt and a CD winner to boot. Chosen Character (Tom Dascombe/ Richard Kingscote) is also a CD winner- in fact he won this race last year off a higher rating, but the ground was very soft that day and he won´t find those conditions this time. There is also a decent field over 1 1/2 miles at 18.10, including ex-German Tahira (John Quinn/ Phillip Makin), who won two valuable sales races in 2013 in Germany when trained by Uwe Stech. He has failed to shine in England so far, but is up in distance here and down in the weights, and he could have a sporting chance, although the opposition -led by Satellite (William Haggas/ Ryan Moore) and the very lightly-raced Tamasha (Ralph Beckett/ Kingscote)- looks strong.

There are also some competitive handicaps at Beverley, a track where if often pays to follow course specialists. With that in mind, we like the chances of Choc´a´Moca (Paul Midgeley/ Graham Lee) at 15.30, Toto Skyllachy (David O´Meara/ Josh Doyle) at 16.30 and Saint Thomas (Jim Mackie/ Dale Swift) half an hour later.

The best of the evening racing comes from Ireland, where are some large fields at Fairyhouse, but as so often only a very small field in the main event, a 7 furlongs conditions race at 20.00. The most interesting runner is Geoffrey Chaucer (Aidan and Joseph O´Brien), who looked so promising in the early part of last season before flopping in both the English and German Derby. He is now tried over a new distance, but we would not trust him at the moment, and prefer both last year´s winner Slipper Orchid (Mike Halford/ Shane Foley), and especially the 3yo filly Tamadhor (Kevin Prendergast/ Chris Hayes), who was only beaten about 4 lengths when 6th of 18 in the Irish 1,000 Guineas last time.