Sandown and Fakenham

There is also N.H. racing today at Sandown and Fakenham, but at a much lower level. Sandown´s main feature is the traditional Royal Artillery Gold Cup, a 3 mile chase at 16.20 CET, once the Queen Mother´s favourite race, but now a bit of an anachronism, as all horses are ridden by members of the armed forces. Scots Dragoon (Nicky Henderson/ Major Michael) used to be a specialist for such events but seems to be out of form, so we prefer last year´ s winner Mr. Big (Charlie Mann/ Ollie Elwood) and Knighton Combe (Jamie Snowden/ Lucy Horner). Also at Sandown, we expect Megastar (Gary and Jamie Moore), a smart bumper horse that has taken well to hurdling, to win the novice hurdle at 16.55, while Pere Blanc (David Arbuthnot/ Aidan Coleman), who won in a canter at Kempton last week, can follow up under bottom weight in the novices handicap hurdle at 16.30. German-bred Kayef (Michael Scudamore/ Alan O´Keeffe) has an each-way chance in the opening 4yo hurdle at 15.10.

Another runner with a good chance of repeating the 2010 victory in the same race is German-bred Victoria´s Groom (Lucy Wadham/ Dominic Elsworth) in the 3 mile handicap chase at 16.10 at Fakenham. He has run some bad races since a year ago, but as a result he has been dropped to an extremely lenient weight and he always runs his best races on flat tracks such as this one. Our other fancy here is Brunswick Gold (Steve Gollings/ Sam Thomas) in the novice hurdle at 15.35; he was fifth last time in a much better race at Cheltenham and repetition of that form should be good enough here.