Jef­frey Ross

Gra­ham Lee, they're all af­ter af­ter him! Since switch­ing from 'jumps' sta­tus to the flat this 36-year-old Grand Na­tion­al win­ning jock­ey has com­plete­ly tran­scend­ed the rac­ing scene by rid­ing clos­er to 50 win­ners this sea­son, in­clud­ing the Stew­ards' Cup over six of the fastest fur­longs in the world, Good­wood. What a stark con­trast to four and a half miles around Ain­tree, aboard Am­ber­leigh House, fourth and last win­ner of our 'Na­tion­al' for the late Gin­ger Mc­Cain; jock­ey­ship is very much about horse­man­ship and adapt­abil­i­ty. It's been an ab­solute plea­sure to watch Gra­ham sort out 'the dif­fer­ence' and in two di­vi­sions of the Maid­en Stakes over ten fur­longs of 'firm' New­cas­tle to­day he's booked for White Nile and Caskale­na trained, re­spec­tive­ly, by group-one win­ning train­er, David Sim­cock, and Sir Michael Stoute.

Once-raced White Nile makes strong ap­peal even though Lu­ca Cumani-trained Medici Mu­sic comes out mar­gin­al­ly bet­ter on my time-hand­i­cap; prob­a­bil­i­ty is there will be con­sid­er­able im­prove­ment from the for­mer be­cause Sim­cock's yard is in much bet­ter form than it was ten weeks ago. A sol­id each-way bet, if played in­to Caskale­na, a twice-raced Galileo fil­ly which just has to be­come a win­ner for breed­ing pur­pos­es; imag­ine the worth of a maid­en by this re­mark­able sire in con­trast to a win­ner. No won­der Stoute is jour­ney­ing her a con­sid­er­able dis­tance to ob­tain win­ning brack­ets. 'Pro­fes­sion­al spe­cial' each-way dou­bles are all about back­ing two hors­es 'cer­tain' to make the frame un­less an 'act of God' pre­vents it.

Run­ning in tan­dem with this North-East­ern fix­ture will be Not­ting­ham and New­bury where it will be no sur­prise if once-raced Es­tifza­az caus­es one in di­vi­sion two of the Maid­en stakes over sev­en fur­longs. Es­tifza­az was sent off a well-backed favourite at New­mar­ket sev­en weeks ago but fluffed his lines; wise­ly Charles Hills has been pa­tient and, sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the spark has been back in re­cent work gal­lops. Iron­i­cal­ly Es­tifza­az is one of two run­ners owned by Ham­dan Al Mak­toum and judged on jock­ey book­ing is the the 'sec­ond string' with Paul Hana­gan pre­fer­ring Er­saal to the Hills-trained In­vin­ci­ble Spir­it colt. I'm mind­ful of the con­fi­dence there was be­hind Es­tifza­az for that de­but; so many 'wise men' can't be wrong!

SE­LEC­TIONS

R3 (5)?Cour Valant

R4 (5) Es­tifza­az (e.w)

R14 (10) White Nile

R17 (11)?Caskale­na (e.w)