Jef­fery Ross

AWR cham­pi­on jock­ey, Luke Mor­ris, kicks off an­oth­er gru­elling six-ride stint aboard La­dy Sylvia, one of ten de­c­la­ra­tions for the Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs of Kemp­ton poly­track tonight, when an eight-race pro­gramme con­tains six hand­i­caps. Bet­ting on all-weath­er hand­i­caps is the quick­est way to an over­draft but maid­ens are all about process of elim­i­na­tion and apart from Kalok­a­gath­ia and pos­si­bly, Di­a­mond­in­hereyes there sim­ply isn't any op­po­si­tion to twice-raced, La­dy Sylvia.

Pun­ters will view a 97-days ab­sence as a mi­nus but train­er Joseph Tu­ite is, ap­par­ent­ly, de­light­ed with the form, fit­ness and well-be­ing of La­dy Sylvia, an out­stand­ing each-way bet­ting propo­si­tion, un­der 'the champ!' Twice-raced Scat­ter Dice, a three-year-old is suit­ed by con­di­tions of the 'aged' Maid­en Fil­lies' Stakes over a mile of South­well fi­bre­sand, just a ques­tion of Mark John­ston's charge act­ing on the 'deep stuff!' Giv­en the sig­nif­i­cance of win­ning with this ex­treme­ly well-bred Man­duro fil­ly, it's worth chanc­ing be­cause no one knows bet­ter than the Mid­dle­ham 'win­ning ma­chine' what's re­quired on a unique sur­face, ar­guably the best and fairest, but tough, be­ing a gal­lop­ing cir­cuit. Doubt­less, Joe Fan­ning, a per­sis­tent ri­val to Mor­ris in the ti­tle race, will make the run­ning on Scat­ter Dice, in an at­tempt to sort out the wheat from the chaff. That shouldn't be dif­fi­cult and as men­tioned, it's just a ques­tion of cop­ing.

Robert L But­ler is back on that enig­mat­ic 'old thief,' Dick­ie Davoir in the ten-run­ner 'aged' hand­i­cap over sev­en fur­longs. That, too, is sig­nif­i­cant. But­ler has al­ways got a tune out of the eight-year-old course/dis­tance win­ner and due to in­con­sis­ten­cy, he's slipped down the weights, again! 'Time' to back 'Dick­ie' and have a saver on top-weight Ma­zov­ian, un­chal­lenged win­ner on this track last week, when we napped Michael Chap­man's cur­rent 'flag­ship!' Hunt­ing­don stages a sev­en-race card which in­cludes the pres­ti­gious list­ed, £15,000 Syd­ney Banks Memo­r­i­al Novices' Hur­dle over two and a half miles. An ide­al can­di­date seems to be Nicky Hen­der­son-trained Mono Man, mount of Bar­ry Ger­aghty, and 'thrown-in' on the TH.

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 4 (#4) DICK­IE LE DE­VOIR (e.w.)

RACE 28 (#5) SCAT­TER DICE

RACE 36 (#9) LA­DY SYLVIA (e.w)