Jef­fery Ross

Stel­la Point has an out­stand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty of mak­ing it third time lucky and re­triev­ing re­cent loss­es, in di­vi­sion two of the Maid­en Fil­lies' Stakes, over ten fur­longs at New­bury to­day. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Richard Hugh­es rides, again! 'The long fel­la' was aboard when Mick Chan­non's twice-raced charge was heav­i­ly-backed and fin­ished fourth, over course last month in a list­ed, £30,000 race to Izzy Top and Danc­ing Rain. The last-named won the Ep­som Oaks last Fri­day and Izzy Top, trained by John Gos­den, was third. The form could not be bet­ter and Stel­la Point is re­port­ed to have im­proved.

Gos­den runs two, Poly­gon and Rain­bow Springs, sec­ond on de­but last Sep­tem­ber, to Frankel! Un­for­tu­nate­ly, she's failed to blos­som but is stuck with a 100 rat­ing on of­fi­cial hand­i­cap as­sess­ment. Chances are Rain­bow Springs will be backed again but has no chance what­so­ev­er and nei­ther do eight oth­ers, if Stel­la Point re­pro­duces her lat­est time-hand­i­cap mark. I'll bet she does and will in­clude her in a 'safe' each-way dou­ble with my nap Chaussi­ni, one of nine de­c­la­ra­tions for the Maid­en Stakes over six fur­longs at Yarmouth, where there is an ex­treme­ly sig­nif­i­cant run­ner, Ar­tic Dancer, in the sev­en fur­longs Sell­ing Stakes, worth just £2,500!

Chaussi­ni has any amount in hand and must not be missed un­der any cir­cum­stances but this Ar­tic Dancer is trained by David Pe­ter Naole, in Ire­land. Con­sid­er the cost of trans­porta­tion for a first prize of about a grand af­ter de­duc­tions and then, try to fath­om out what's go­ing on. Too many Irish raiders are com­ing over and win­ning. It's dis­con­cert­ing for pun­ters be­cause there's no way of know­ing the strength of op­po­si­tion be­ing sent. Re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, in both flat and jumps, these races have to be avoid­ed for se­ri­ous bet­ting pur­pos­es which, of course, de­feats the Levy ob­jec­tive. Crazy!

Ryan Moore is favourite to be 'top jock­ey' at Roy­al As­cot next week. His con­fi­dence was shat­tered by the ride on Carl­ton House in the Ep­som Der­by and he'll need a few win­ners on the board to get back in the groove. Flo­ral Beau­ty, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, should go a away to­wards restora­tion, in di­vi­sion one of the Maid­en Fil­lies Stakes over ten fur­longs of the pic­turesque Berk­shire cir­cuit.

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 1 (#5) FLO­RAL BEAU­TY

RACE 4 (#2) CHAUSSI­NI (nap)

RACE 12 (#10) STEL­LA POINT

RACE 14 (#7) DERVISH­ER