Mayaasem is one of sev­er­al strong Charles Hills-trained fan­cies to­day. This su­perbly-bred, Ham­dan al Mak­toum-owned, Roy­al Ap­plause fil­ly faces on­ly three ri­vals in the Maid­en Stakes over a 'good to soft' six fur­longs at Hay­dock and jus­ti­fies sup­port.

No 'cert' by any means, once-raced Yourar­ti­son­fire ac­tu­al­ly comes out 'best-in' on my time-hand­i­cap but Mayaasem is reck­oned a bit 'spe­cial' and re­port­ed­ly, has im­proved con­sid­er­ably since mak­ing her de­but, over the min­i­mum trip on this course last month. Fourth to Cos­mic Chat­ter reads like a promis­ing ef­fort and in­deed, it was even though the Hills camp was slight­ly dis­ap­point­ed. Re­sults in the fol­low­ing four weeks il­lus­trat­ed that 'Far­ing­don' was not a sta­ble to fol­low and that's of­ten been the case down the years for many rac­ing sta­bles in Lam­bourn. Take note! Sta­ble-com­pan­ion, Gor­don Flash is qui­et­ly-fan­cied for the Ap­pren­tice Hand­i­cap over 11 fur­longs at New­bury, where ground is fore­cast 'good!'

That's a sur­prise giv­en the amount of rain and I'll be in­ter­est­ed to see race-times and make up my own mind. Ei­ther way, the Berk­shire sur­face shouldn't be an in­con­ve­nience to Gor­don Flash who al­so turned in an en­cour­ag­ing ef­fort four weeks ago, af­ter nigh on two years off the track. Re­li­able sta­ble-ap­pren­tice, Matthew Law­son, is en­trust­ed with 'the job' and I'll bet he com­pletes his task, suc­cess­ful­ly. You may have no­ticed. Charles has jour­neyed Heyaaraat on a long trip to Yarmouth for the 'aged' hand­i­cap over ten fur­longs. Take the hint. Op­po­si­tion is mod­er­ate and she aint, not by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion.

William Car­son is booked. A sev­en-race pro­gramme kicks off with an eight-run­ner Maid­en Stakes over six fur­longs and thrice-raced, Ocean Ap­plause is napped to build on his Roy­al As­cot fifth a fort­night ago, in ca­pa­ble hands of globe-trot­ting Brett Doyle.

Un­less Pe­ter Chap­ple-Hyam-trained new­com­er, Has­bah, is above av­er­age or an­oth­er im­proves con­sid­er­ably, Ocean Ap­plause should win, if able to repli­cate any­thing like that lat­est ef­fort. Many years ago, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-mind­ed back­ers would of­ten wait un­til 'af­ter Roy­al As­cot' be­fore back­ing two-year-olds. Noth­ing has changed, apart from des­per­ate weath­er con­di­tions.

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 1 (#3) OCEAN AP­PLAUSE (nap)

RACE 6 (#3) MAYAASEM

RACE 12 (#10) HEYAARAAT (e.w.)

RACE 21 (#9) GOR­DON FLASH (e.w.)