Jef­fer­ey Ross

Bath doesn't need wa­ter and 'weath­er' or not a band of fore­cast rain falls on 'good to soft' ground, at the high­est race­course in the Unit­ed King­dom, is a mat­ter of some in­dif­fer­ence to Charles Hills-trained Cool Macav­i­ty, one of eight 'decs' for the £15800 'aged' hand­i­cap over ten fur­longs to­day.

'Cool' is dropped in grade, he idled in front when clear at Don­cast­er last month over a sim­i­lar dis­tance but Robert Win­ston knew he'd gone too soon on this four-year-old geld­ing which, in­ci­den­tal­ly, is sched­uled to join the pow­er­ful Nicky Hen­der­son's jump­ing team af­ter­wards, win or lose.

Ap­par­ent­ly Cool Macav­i­ty has looked a nat­ur­al jumper from the mo­ment he was schooled over hur­dles, don't miss him in his new role or on this oc­ca­sion when he'll be rid­den by William Car­son, suc­cess­ful on sta­ble-com­pan­ion Lin­guine around Leices­ter ear­li­er this week.

Car­son is a grand-son of for­mer cham­pi­on jock­ey Willie; he's mak­ing a fist of race-rid­ing and with ex­pe­ri­ence should be­come a reg­u­lar in the 'top ten' for many years be­cause he's def­i­nite­ly got the right at­ti­tude and men­tal­i­ty for what is a tough job.

Pun­ters al­ways blame jock­ey­ship, nev­er the hors­es, or them­selves, but 'jocks' are a tough, hard­ened breed and William is ob­vi­ous­ly re­signed to the fact even though he'll al­ways live in shad­ows of a true great.

Cool Macav­i­ty has one sharp run that lasts for about 150 me­tres, ex­pect William to de­liv­er him to lead just in­side the fi­nal fur­long!

Ear­li­er an­oth­er eight-run­ner race when once-raced Don Mar­co is a like­ly win­ning-favourite for the Maid­en Stakes over about six fur­longs; in fact it's five fur­longs and 167 yards be­cause there was nev­er space for the last few yards and, af­ter two cen­turies, they are not go­ing to change now!

Don Mar­co achieved a use­ful time-hand­i­cap mark when fourth, beat­en four lengths, by our nap, Val­lar­ta, over a sim­i­lar dis­tance at New­bury last month; im­prove­ment is ex­pect­ed, but not need­ed, and this Roger Charl­ton-trained Choisir geld­ing rates a 'pro­fes­sion­al spe­cial!'

My modus operan­di will in­clude two 'win' bets and an each-way dou­ble Cool Macav­i­ty/Don Mar­co, if there are no non-run­ners mean­ing three places will be re­duced to two. Make sure they all run be­fore plac­ing the EW in­vest­ment!

Nine go to post for a dif­fi­cult-look­ing Maid­en Stakes over ten fur­longs; four with­in 3lbs on the TH but Sir Quin­ton is giv­en yet an­oth­er chance un­der David Probert rid­ing for his his guv'nor, An­drew Bald­ing, whose yard has been un­der a cloud, like so many oth­ers this year.

This com­bi­na­tion struck at Not­ting­ham ear­li­er this week how­ev­er and re­ports sug­gest Kingscle­re is about to have a re­ward­ing back-end pe­ri­od.

SE­LEC­TIONS

R1 (2) Don Mar­co

R5 (7) Sir Quintin (e.w)

R7 (4) Cool Macav­i­ty (e.w).