Jef­fery Ross

Hep­worth faces a sim­ple task when at­tempt­ing to make it third time lucky in the Maid­en Stakes over twelve fur­longs of Wolver­hamp­ton poly­track to­day, just a case of go­ing down and com­ing back.

John Gos­den's light­ly-raced charge must have had a few blips and so did pun­ters when Hep­worth was backed in­to favouritism last month, de­spite a long ab­sence, when fin­ish­ing run­ner-up (again!) to Omar Khayyam over a sim­i­lar dis­tance at Ling­field, rid­den by Robert Havlin.

Hep­worth achieved noth­ing like the time-hand­i­cap mark logged on her de­but over a mile at Don­cast­er in Oc­to­ber 2011, af­ter which clas­sic hopes were be­ing en­ter­tained!

This is a 'must-win' sit­u­a­tion for the four-year-old Singspiel fil­ly, own­er Den­ford Stud will have for­tunes in­vest­ed in Hep­worth and, pre­sum­ably, a sire has been lined up to cov­er her when the of­fi­cial North­ern Hemi­sphere breed­ing sea­son gets un­der way on Feb­ru­ary 15th. Gos­den will be anx­ious even though, to all in­tents and pur­pos­es, this is 'a penal­ty-kick with­out a goalie!'

A clear blue sky is fore­cast but there might just be a tee­ny cloud on the hori­zon, Gold­en Share, trained by up and com­ing New­mar­ket-based Mar­cus Bot­ti and mount of all-weath­er cham­pi­onship lead­ing jock­ey, Adam Kir­by.

There has to be a good rea­son why Gold­en Share was favourite on de­but six­teen days ago, mon­ey talks!

Kir­by was aboard Gold­en Share, she nev­er fig­ured at any stage around Ling­field but nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate to what ex­tent thor­ough­breds can im­prove, for ex­pe­ri­ence.

My play will be a dual fore­cast with Hep­worth and an each-way bet on Gold­en Share be­cause oth­ers are def­i­nite­ly nigh on use­less. Gos­den will know that, he'll be anx­ious!

Pa­tience is the supreme virtue and Racheal Kneller will def­i­nite­ly ex­er­cise it on Idol Deputy, one of nine 'decs' for the 'aged' hand­i­cap over ten fur­longs.

This con­sis­tent sev­en-year-old is a re­al 'favourite' with Racheal, the best fe­male ap­pren­tice jock­ey around and a cred­it to the rac­ing schools.

Giv­en Idol Deputy will be rid­den to lead in the last strides he rates a sol­id each-way bet on a dif­fi­cult day. Stick to the se­lec­tions which have been do­ing the TH jus­tice and pro­duced a cou­ple 'beauts' on dai­lyearn­er.co.uk last Sun­day.

Don't for­get, click on every day.

SE­LEC­TIONS

?R17 (8): Hep­worth (nap)

R24 (12): Aragorn Rouge (e.w)

R25 (6): Idol Deputy (e.w)