Jef­fery Ross

Has Richard Kingscote fin­ished with train­er Tom Das­combe and sta­ble(s) own­er Michael Owen?

Fol­low­ing the 'jock­ing off' of Kingscote, in favour of Kieren Fal­lon for Brown Pan­ther, run­ner-up in the St Leg­er ear­li­er this month, this com­bi­na­tion has sig­nif­i­cant­ly not been in ev­i­dence since; to­day Paul Hana­gan is booked for strong­ly-fan­cied Gin Twist in the Maid­en Stakes over five fur­longs of Wolver­hamp­ton poly­track. Richard isn't sus­pend­ed, he's rid­ing two at near­by War­wick for Jonathan Port­man! 'There's no smoke with­out fire' as they say and it would seem ob­vi­ous they have split.

Con­sis­tent hith­er­to luck­less will be blink­ered for the first time, she comes out 'best-in' on my time-hand­i­cap and un­der 'the champ' must be worth a punt de­spite be­ing drawn widest of ten.

Asi­fa is strong­ly-fan­cied for di­vi­sion one of the Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs of War­wick to­day, what beats Saeed Bin Suroor's charge will win! Twice-raced Asi­fa im­proved con­sid­er­ably for ex­pe­ri­ence when third, beat­en two lengths, by Hol­i­day Read­ing in a sim­i­lar race at Folke­stone six­teen days back; in fact this su­perbly-bred Green Desert colt dwelt but made up con­sid­er­able ground and was re­al­ly tank­ing in the clos­ing stages. A re­pro­duc­tion of that ef­fort should suf­fice, in­ter­est­ing to note Asi­fa will wear blink­ers!

Jim­my For­tune rides, that's a plus but oth­er two-year-old fan­cies, Hey Fid­dle Fid­dle and Fa­mous Po­et are rid­den by 49-year-old twins Michael and Richard Hills re­spec­tive­ly.

In maid­en races they can still 'cut it' with few se­ri­ous run­ners and I'll be play­ing an each-way dou­ble but nev­er bet ei­ther in hand­i­caps, when all hors­es are weight­ed to dead-heat; it stands to rea­son that age is against them with so many en­thu­si­as­tic, more tal­ent­ed jock­eys bat­tling in a fierce­ly-com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment. Ex­pe­ri­ence is use­ful in set-weight maid­en races and I'll be gob­s­macked (and poor­er!) if Hey Fid­dle Fid­dle and Fa­mous Po­et fail to make the frame. Sig­nif­i­cant that Char­lie Hills sees fit to re­place Michael on Brim­stone Hill in the sev­en fur­longs nurs­ery with sta­ble ap­pren­tice Matthew Law­son!

Matthew claims 5lbs al­lowance, that should weigh heav­i­ly in the com­ing weeks, against op­po­si­tion in hand­i­caps, be­cause Law­son rides pro­fi­cient­ly and can take ad­van­tage. a promis­ing ca­reer awaits and from all ac­counts hes pre­pared to lis­ten, and learn.

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 7 (#7) HEY FID­DLE FID­DLE (e.w.)

RACE 11 (#1) ASI­FA

RACE 18 (#4) FA­MOUS PO­ET (e.w.)

RACE 20 (#7) GIN TWIST (e.w.)