Jef­fery Ross

A 'Gift' for South­well pun­ters to start off to­day, in the Bet­daq Fil­lies' Hand­i­cap over sev­en fur­longs of fi­bre­sand. Act­ing on the 'deep stuff' is of para­mount im­por­tance. On­ly 12 days ago, Pe­ter's Gift achieved a ca­reer-best ef­fort over six fur­longs of Ling­field poly­track. There are two ques­tions: will Kevin Ryan's charge get ex­tra dis­tance and han­dle the con­trast­ing sur­face?

If it were any oth­er train­er, I'd dis­miss the thought but Ryan is a fine train­er. He'll KNOW whether or not Pe­ter's Gift is a suit­able case for treat­ment.

On the time-hand­i­cap, Pe­ter's Gift has too much in hand to be over-looked and with Neil Callan rid­ing, I'll take my chance with a straight win bet. Point­less risk­ing an each-way 'in­sur­ancer' be­cause, if in­deed the un­think­able hap­pens and Pe­ter's Gift is all at sea (and sand!), two stakes would be squan­dered. Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly the on­ly way to take ad­van­tage of an each-way bet­ting struc­ture is to play the dou­ble in eight-run­ner (plus!) races. There's ob­vi­ous­ly no such thing as a 'cert' in rac­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when dis­cussing vet­er­an sprint­er, Wel­come Ap­proach but the sev­en-year-old must be backed each-way, for the Ap­pren­tice Hand­i­cap over six fur­longs at Wolver­hamp­ton.

On­ly last week, Wel­come Ap­proach stormed home over course and dis­tance to fin­ish sec­ond and achieve his best TH mark for a very long time. The time-fig­ure was quite alarm­ing, in fact. David Ken­ny rides. He's ex­pe­ri­enced, not to men­tion re­li­able and so, let's be ready to give him a prop­er 'Wel­come!' Aa­man is al­so in the form of his life. He had an­oth­er un­chal­lenged romp at South­well, ear­li­er this week and it should just be a ques­tion of go­ing round in the two miles 'all-aged' hand­i­cap, off bot­tom-weight!

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 7 (#2) PE­TER'S GIFT

RACE 33 (#3) TAG TEAM (e.w.)

RACE 36 (#5) WEL­COME AP­PROACH

RACE 46 (#13) AA­MAN