Jef­fery Ross

A Boy Named Suzi will be at­tempt­ing to get off the mark at the fifth time of ask­ing at Wolver­hamp­ton to­day, when op­posed by five ri­vals in the Maid­en Stakes over 12 fur­longs. On­ly Hid­den Val­ley, al­so win-less from four out­ings, stands in the way of James Eu­stace's charge.On of­fi­cial rat­ings, they come out sim­i­lar­ly, af­ter ad­just­ment of a fil­lies' al­lowance. Cue the time-hand­i­cap there­fore, which sug­gests A Boy Named Suzi jus­ti­fies my nap se­lec­tion.

Three weeks back, A Boy Named Suzi made his sea­son­al de­but over ten fur­longs at Pon­te­fract, where this Medicis geld­ing, de­spite be­ing beat­en sev­en lengths by See­lo, sig­nif­i­cant­ly achieved a 'ca­reer-best' mark.Eu­stace has al­lowed plen­ty of time for re­cov­ery. Prob­a­bil­i­ty is Hid­den Val­ley wont im­prove suf­fi­cient­ly if A Boy Named Suzi runs any­thing like and so, have a good bet.I'm hap­pi­est to con­fine se­ri­ous punt­ing to all-weath­er cours­es be­cause as ever, turf tracks are be­ing wa­tered in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly, thus up­set­ting form cal­cu­la­tions. It's a chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion. Book­ies nev­er com­ment on it but can you blame them?

They must be mak­ing for­tunes out of 'the lot­tery' which is the Eng­lish rac­ing scene, es­pe­cial­ly in hand­i­caps. For­tu­nate­ly, you've got an ex­pe­ri­enced rac­ing man guid­ing you through a 'mine­field' and our suc­cess (again!) this sea­son is tes­ti­mo­ny to the work and prepa­ra­tion that goes in­to mak­ing re­spon­si­ble se­lec­tions. Al­so, at Dun­stall Park there ap­pears to be a clear-cut each-way op­por­tu­ni­ty-Rock Canyon, in the eight-run­ner Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs.

Rock Canyon will not be favourite be­cause Sir Mark Prescott-trained, Re­peater went in­to a lot of note­books fol­low­ing a promis­ing de­but ef­fort at Leices­ter, eleven days ago. Al­though well-beat­en in­to third, this Mon­t­jeu colt ran ex­treme­ly well, giv­en he gal­loped loose be­fore the start. Per­haps the ex­pe­ri­ence would have put him off!If they all go to post (make sure they do be­fore plac­ing a bet!), Rock Canyon jus­ti­fies a se­ri­ous wa­ger and will form the sec­ond leg of an each-way tre­ble which, hope­ful­ly, is con­clud­ed with Roy­al Red land­ing the open­ing Maid­en Stakes over five fur­longs at Wind­sor tonight.

Strong­ly-fan­cied!

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 4 (#3) A BOY NAMED SUZI(nap)

RACE 8 (#3) BET­TY FONTAINE

RACE 12 (#8) ROCK CANYON (e.w.)

RACE 23 (#7) ROY­AL RED (e.w.)