MIDDLE Persia will be strongly fancied to open her account in the opening Irish Stallion Farms Fillies Maiden, if tonight’s Clonmel meeting survives an 8.30.a.m. inspection.

MODERATE is about the best word to describe what’s on offer at Limerick this evening, with seven ordinary flat races hardly an enticing prospect.

A leading bookmaker was robbed of tens of thousands of pounds by a masked gang as he left the Cheltenham Festival, it emerged today.