The card at Warwick survived the inspection at 8am on Thursday morning after a night when temperatures did not drop as sharply as had been feared, and the Midlands track will stage the only jumps racing in Britain since Fakenham abandoned all hope early on Wednesday afternoon.
Things are looking a little more uncertain for Friday, however, as both Doncaster and Huntingdon have called inspections for for 7.30am and 8.00am respectively. At Doncaster, the threat is seen as being “more from possible snowfall in the early hours” than the forecast overnight temperature of -2C, while at Huntingdon, where a valuable mares’ hurdle is the feature event, the clerk of the course, Jack Pryor, is “confident currently” that racing will go ahead.
The even-money that was available about Yanmare (2.00) on Thursday morning has now dried up, but even a shade of odds-on still looks like a fair price about Nigel Twiston-Davies’s gelding at Warwick. His winning run came to an end at Newbury on New Year’s Eve, but there were excuses there as it later transpired that Gavin Sheehan, his jockey, was riding with a broken wrist. Yanmare had previously completed a hat-trick for conditional jockey Jamie Bargary, rising from a mark of 74 to 96 in the process, and today’s rating of 104 still looks very fair as he returns to Class 4 company with Bargary back in the saddle.
Court Frontier (2.35) will surely go close on the same card when he returns to hurdling for the first time since November 2015. Paul Morgan’s nine-year-old recorded his first success over fences for nearly two years at Chepstow last week, when he finished strongly to win by eight lengths from a mark of 110. He can run off the same mark today, and having scored by 22 lengths off 100 at Fairyhouse earlier in his career, when he was trained in Ireland by Alan Fleming, Court Frontier will take plenty of beating.
Haraka (2.45) had shown very little in four starts prior to her Fibresand debut on 29 December, but improved abruptly in first-time blinkers to come home a length-and-a-half in front of Daily Trader, a two-length winner at Southwell earlier this week. Whether it was the headgear, the surface or a combination of the two that did the trick, Ralph Beckett’s horse looks to have a little more scope for progress than Dream Team, her main rival in the betting in the 32red.com Handicap at Southwell.
Essenaitch (3.55) made his Fibresand debut this month and can complete a hat-trick in as many starts later on the card, while Luv U Always (1.35) is a riskier proposition in the maiden but is by Captain Gerrard, whose offspring have a decent record on this surface.
Today’s tips
Warwick 12.55 Don Bersy 1.25 Wizard’s Sliabh 2.00 Yanmare (nb) 2.35 Court Frontier 3.10 Open Hearted 3.45 King Of Realms 4.20 Cirano De Sivola
Southwell 1.05 My Renaissance 1.35 Luv U Always 2.10 Piazon 2.45 Haraka (nap) 3.20 Western Presence 3.55 Essenaitch
Wolverhampton 5.50 Dor’s Law 6.25 John Ceasar 7.00 Charismatic Man 7.30 Captain Swift 8.00 Zehrah 8.30 Sir Jamie 9.00 Athletic
