Jef­fery Ross

Mar­veli­no is a long time win­ning but should make it 13th time lucky in the Maid­en Stakes over five fur­longs of Ling­field poly­track to­day; on­ly six days ago Pat Ed­dery's charge ran gal­lant­ly to fin­ish sec­ond in a hand­i­cap over a sim­i­lar dis­tance around Wolver­hamp­ton, un­der nine stone sev­en pounds!

Robert Win­ston was aboard and keeps the ride; that's good news be­cause he's rid­ing like a man in­spired with a fierce de­ter­mi­na­tion to make a re­al fist of his ca­reer which has had its ups and downs.

Doubt­less Robert will jump out and take no pris­on­ers with Mar­veli­no, ab­solute­ly 'thrown-in' judged on sev­er­al ef­forts; there sim­ply can't be any ex­cus­es this time.

My Scot Dad­dy should re­ward each-way back­ers in the nine-run­ner 'aged app­pren­tice' hand­i­cap over a mile, mount of Ryan Tate.

That's sig­nif­i­cant, Tate rode a su­perb race on a win­ning se­lec­tion last week, judg­ing pace su­perbly from the front; I've been im­pressed with him a time or two.

My Scat Dad­dy is in good form, hav­ing fin­ished sec­ond in suc­ces­sive races to Sandy Lane/Bus­sa, and off bot­tom weight less five pounds claim of young Tate, jus­ti­fies a sol­id punt.

Valdez is fore­cast favourite for the open­ing Novices' Hur­dle over two miles of 'soft' Plump­ton and I've combed eleven ri­vals for a dan­ger; there isn't one!

A con­sis­tent type Valdez has at least a stone in hand and doubt­less Robert Thorn­ton wont be mess­ing about in be­hind; hope­ful­ly he'll sort out the wheat from the chaff with a pos­i­tive rid­ing ef­fort, from the front!

Last Sat­ur­day it was in­trigu­ing to watch Ja­son Maguire adopt such tac­tics aboard Up And Go in a two and a half miles novice hur­dle at Wether­by; Leighton As­pell was ob­vi­ous­ly in­struct­ed to set­tle his mount, Many Clouds in an at­tempt to pro­duce a late surge.

Many Clouds did in­deed round off with a flour­ish but couldn't get to the win­ner, rid­den su­perbly and typ­i­cal­ly by Maguire; on soft ground, if a front-run­ner doesn't weak­en, it's ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult, nigh im­pos­si­ble, to 'ride a race' and catch them, as men­tioned to Carl Llewellyn a long time ago. He took the hint and time with­out num­ber rode his con­tem­po­raries to sleep.

Be ready for Many Clouds next time out and the third home, Ard­kil­ly Wit­ness, be­cause the form has a sol­id look.

SE­LEC­TIONS

?RACE 2 (1) VALDEZ.

RACE 9 (4) MAR­VELI­NO (nap)

RACE 17 (9) MY SCAT DAD­DY (e.w)