All-weather racing at Lingfield and Kempton

There are plenty of German-breds running in Britain and Ireland today, but easily the most interesting are the three ex-Ullmann/ Schlenderhan horses saddled by Barney Curley at Lingfield this afternoon with Tom Queally in the saddle. Barney is our favourite trainer, but it is always difficult to figure out exactly where he will strike, hoqwer we shall be suprisd of he goes home wthout a winner. The superbly-bred Sure Fire in the 1 mile 5 furlong maiden at 16.00 looks the most likely winner.

He has not shown much so far, but very little is required here; French Hollow (Tim Fitzgerald/ Robert Winston), a bumper winner and beaten favourite when 4th here last time, is the obvious danger. Aviso, who won the Mehl-Mühlens-Rennen in 2007, is thrown in off a mark of 70 in the mile handicap at 17.00. He started out in the U.K. with a rating of 95, but he has been off the track since July. The case of Allanit is similar; he has been dropped from 100 to 65, but has not run since August and his British efforts have been very poor. However, if anywhere near his best, he would have an obvious chance in the 10 furlongs handicap at 17.30.

The 7 furlongs handicap at 20.10 is the best race at Kempton´s twilight meeting; this is a very open race, and cases can be made for the lightly-raced Celtic Sovereign (Mick Quinlan/ Jerry O´Dwyer), top-weight Confuchias (Jeremy Gask/ Luke Morris) and the enigmatic Dingaan ( Andrew Balding/ David Probert) among others. Otherwise there are some small fields at Kempton, and with several of ths runners meeting each other almost every week, they are not good betting races.