Jef­frey Ross

"Gun­ner" will even­tu­al­ly gain win­ning brack­ets, prob­a­bly in the Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs of the new­ly-laid Kemp­ton poly­track to­day. Nine at­tempts have yield­ed three sec­onds and a third for Jamie Os­borne-trained Gun­ner Will, a con­sis­tent three-year-old which at this last year was an 80-rat­ed ju­ve­nile; plac­ing is very much the art of suc­cess­ful train­ing and, sur­pris­ing­ly, they haven't found the key. Once again there are dan­gers and in­deed maid­ens this year are prov­ing much more dif­fi­cult to win, a con­se­quence of so many aban­don­ments due to wet weath­er; so many train­ers are in the same boat with sim­i­lar in­di­vid­u­als that have need­ed bet­ter ground to give of their best. "Poly" is my favourite sur­face, wide­ly ac­claimed in fact, and Gun­ner Will achieved his best mark for a long time over a mile of this course a month back; that's sig­nif­i­cant.

In tan­dem with this fix­ture is a sev­en-race Ripon pro­gramme and a gilt-edged op­por­tu­ni­ty for Roy­al As­pi­ra­tion in the nine-run­ner Maid­en Stakes over six fur­longs; what beats this thrice-raced Richard Fa­hey-trained Ac­cla­ma­tion colt will win judged on his ex­cel­lent ef­fort in the New­bury "Sales" race last month. That race was run in fast time, form is sol­id and it was dis­ap­point­ing when the fourth home, Top Boy, was rid­den neg­a­tive­ly at Good­wood last week. Keep Derek Shaw's charge in your note-book.

Roy­al Ap­pli­ca­tion has a sol­id look and he'll be the first leg of my "pro­fes­sion­al spe­cial" each-way dou­ble in­to Gun­ner Will. Al­so at the North York­shire course Fa­hey runs Roc de Prince in the Maid­en Stakes over twelve fur­longs against two ob­vi­ous dan­gers, Ace Of Val­hal­la and Pul­ver­ize, trained re­spec­tive­ly by Sir Hen­ry Ce­cil and Sir Michael Stoute! Ce­cil, cur­rent­ly re­cov­er­ing from a bout of treat­ment against can­cer, was un­able to at­tend Good­wood and vic­to­ry cer­e­monies of full-broth­ers, Frankel and No­ble Mis­sion, but hopes to be back "on track" at York lat­er this month; it's a mis­er­able sit­u­a­tion, some­thing you wouldn't wish on your worst en­e­my and his pos­i­tive, de­ter­mined at­ti­tude con­tin­ues to shine through. Good luck to him. Ace Of Val­hal­la is mar­gin­al­ly "best-in" and se­lect­ed but this promis­es to be stir­ring ac­tion. En­joy it!

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 5 (#5) MY MANDY (e.w.)

RACE 24 (#4) TROP­I­CAL BLUE (nap)

RACE 40 (#5) LAY­ALI AL AN­DALUS

RACE 46 (#4) BESSIE LOU (e.w.)