Jef­fery Ross

Qan­naas is strong­ly-fan­cied to get off the mark di­vi­sion one of the Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs at Thirsk to­day, 'yan­kee an­chor' if ever there was one. Pa­tience is the supreme virtue when plac­ing thor­ough­breds to win, Char­lie Hills has ex­er­cised plen­ty dur­ing a di­a­bol­i­cal spell of wet weath­er which has pre­clud­ed any chance of Qan­naas run­ning; this Ham­dan Al Mak­toum-owned Hard Spun colt needs a de­cent sur­face and it's fore­cast 'good to firm' ground at the pop­u­lar North­ern cir­cuit. On my time-hand­i­cap Qan­naas needs on­ly to go down and come back un­der cham­pi­on jock­ey Paul Hana­gan who scored in these colours on sta­ble-com­pan­ion Ker­baaj at Sandown, Wednes­day night, when the USA-bred Dix­ie Union colt sprout­ed wings in the clos­ing stages.

Ker­baaj is an ex­cit­ing prospect, he was the third two-year-old win­ner on suc­ces­sive days for Hills this week and there is promise of more boun­ty from his ju­ve­nile di­vi­sion, es­pe­cial­ly if Charles can book Hana­gan! Ear­li­er twice-raced Glen Gin­nie is drawn one of nine­teen in the open­ing Maid­en Stakes over five fur­longs, the 'cof­fin box?' Ma­jor­i­ty think­ing will go along with that but I've bucked the trend a time or two down one of the fastest straights imag­in­able; there is no ad­van­tage ei­ther side, I've proved it and reck­on Glen Gin­nie could sup­ply fur­ther ev­i­dence un­der Hong Kong cham­pi­on ap­pren­tice jock­ey, Matthew Chad­wick, on a 'bus­man's hol­i­day' for a month dur­ing the HK close sea­son. He scored on Red Ex­plor­er for the Hills' camp at Ffos Las, Tues­day.

Twice-raced Glen Gin­nie ap­pears to have no form to speak of but ran tidi­ly on de­but at Good­wood be­fore flop­ping on Kemp­ton poly­track, just over sev­en weeks ago, since when she's been 'spelled' in readi­ness for bet­ter ground. If able to re­pro­duce her Good­wood fourth Glen Gin­nie will be hard to beat; re­ports sug­gest she's been work­ing well enough and at mega-odds is def­i­nite­ly worth chanc­ing; hope­ful­ly Chad­wick will be in­struct­ed, pos­i­tive­ly, to 'hit the gate and run' right down the far rail. In­ci­den­tal­ly Sir Hen­ry Ce­cil-trained Epoque al­so looks 'spe­cial' in di­vi­sion two of the maid­en and this is def­i­nite­ly the meet­ing this af­ter­noon when Olympic cel­e­bra­tions for a grand open­ing cer­e­mo­ny will cap­ture the na­tion. As­cot stages a six-race pro­gramme in tan­dem and Star Of Rohm could spring a sur­prise un­der William Buick in the ten-run­ner nurs­ery over six fur­longs. Trained by 'Ding Dong' Bell this Ex­ceed And Ex­cel colt is a lot bet­ter than his form fig­ures sug­gest; I'll bet that's the case!

SE­LEC­TIONS

R2 (16) Glen Gin­nie (e.w)

R6 (4) Star Of Rohm (e.w)

R17 (8) Qan­naas

R20 (7) Epoque