Warwick today

Warwick stages its best meeting of the year today and the main event is the Grade Two novice hurdle over 2 miles 5 furlongs at 16.05 CET. All 8 runners are winners and two of them unbeaten - Cotton Mill (John Ferguson/ Jack Quinlan) and Highland Lodge (Emma Lavelle/ Jack Doyle, and we expect these two to fight out the finish. Lavelle has won this race 3 times in the past 4 years, but our preference is for Cotton Mill, who was quite useful on the flat in 2010, and after missing the 2011 flat season has shown a lot of talent over sticks.

The novice chase at 14.25 also features several runners who could well be mixing it in top company before long. Frascati Park (Nigel and Sam Twiston-Davies) is one of them, but we are not sure that he really stays today´s extended 3 miles; all his wins have come over much shorter. Emma Lavelle has another good chance here with Court Victory /Noel Fehily), disqualified last time, but our main fancy is Alfie Spinner (Nick Williams/ James Reveley) who scored in good style last time at Chepstow and who stays really well.

The rest of the card consists of very tricky handicaps, with the Classic Chase, a Grade Three handicap chase over 3 miles 5 furlongs, the most valuable race and the big betting event. Obviousy stamina is a major issue here and the field includes some potential Grand National runners, notably Neptune Equester (Brian Ellison/ Aidan Coleman), who is prominent in Aintree betting. He is clearly one for the short list, but we are not so sure about Hey Big Spender (Nigel and Sam Twiston-Davies) who is the best horse in the field but weighted up to the hilt.
We much prefer Blazing Bailey (Alan King/ Charlie Huxley) and David Pipe´s two runners Faasel (Conor O´Farrell) and Sona Sasta (Hadden Frost) while Fredo (Ian Williams/ Harry Skelton) - by Lomitas out of an Acatenango mare -is a definite danger if the race is run to suit.

Another runner with a German pedigree who could run well is Moon over Miami (Charlie Mann/ Noel Fehily) in the 2 mile handicap chase at 15.00; he needs to come from behind off a strong pace, and that looks guaranteed here with tearaway Marodima in the field. There are also two German-breds in the handicap hurdle at 15.30, but El Dancer and Lightning Strike both look more likely to run at Kempton; in their absense our selection would be Aachen (Venetia Williams/ RTDunne) in a very open race. We also like consistent Up to the Mark (Henry Daly/ Andrew Thornton) in the opening handicap hurdle; he may not necessarily win but looks a cast-iron each way bet.