Wednesday racing and football

I like Fashionable Gal in the Lingfield 2:50pm on Wednesday. She was hampered when beaten by Colour Scheme in her last race, and she should be winning among this average lot. The main danger should be from Purtuis. Since this is a maiden race, it's safer to have Fashionable gal as a Place bet (she's been runner-up twice and you never know about the perennial runner-up syndrome).

One other horse to take a look at is Cape Classic in the Kempton 5:40pm. Again, the lot here is very average, and this colt had a very encouraging debut at Newmarket around a fortnight ago. If it has improved expectedly since then, it should be in the frame. However I cannot put a sure recommendation based solely on its debut. It's a horse to follow, if you are thinking long returns.

England-France friendly match. As I was mentioning before, friendlies are a far cry from real qualifiers regarding the predictability of the results, and hence the betting. France are a building team and if that were a real qualifier, I would find no way for them to beat England at Wembley. In fact, even in this friendly, I still strongly fancy England's chances as a draw-no-bet. I am not sure what's running in the mind of Capello in terms of team selection over 90 mins, but I would be surprised if he does not put in 11 men that can win the match. England as draw-no-bet if you fancy some football punting, but it's impossible to give guarantees for friendlies.

Place: Fashionable Gal.