Jef­frey Ross

Arc Cara is strong­ly-fan­cied for the sev­en-run­ner Maid­en Stakes over sev­en fur­longs of Wolver­hamp­ton Tape­ta to­day but it's by no means cut 'n dried for this thrice-raced Ar­cano geld­ing; it looks a tough as­sign­ment.

All thor­ough­breds have to race three times for BHA hand­i­cap as­sess­ment; Arc Cara made his sea­son­al de­but in a sim­i­lar race on Kemp­ton poly­track fif­teen days ago when jock­ey Richard Kingscote ap­peared to be 'sail­ing close to the wind!'

At no stage was Arc Cara in con­tention with a se­ri­ous chance and, sig­nif­i­cant­ly, ran well be­low two-year-old time-hand­i­cap marks, once when rid­den by Kingscote who en­joyed a fab­u­lous vic­to­ry in Dubai last week­end aboard Tom Das­combe-trained Brown Pan­ther.

'Mess­ing about' get­ting hors­es suit­ably hand­i­capped doesn't make sense and, in­ci­den­tal­ly, Arc Cara was al­lot­ted a mark of 75, prob­a­bly con­sid­er­ably high­er than train­er Ralph Beck­ett ex­pect­ed, me­thinks, and the rea­son why he's con­test­ing an­oth­er maid­en!

In op­po­si­tion are twice-raced Sug­ar Boy, trained by John Gos­den, and Thanaaya, 'eye-catch­ing' on de­but at New­mar­ket last sea­son and, ap­par­ent­ly, well re­gard­ed by the Ed Dun­lop camp. Al­so Charles Hills is hope­ful of Dark Prof­it.

Fit­ness re­mains at a pre­mi­um, so many run­ners will be need­ing an out­ing and so re­lat­ing his chance to a half-de­cent price Arc Cara is a ten­ta­tive se­lec­tion; you don't have to bet, just mon­i­tor these-type races.

Opin­ions dif­fer and train­ers might take is­sue with them but I've been watch­ing races for decades, work­ing out race-times, etc, and reck­on my record speaks for it­self but I'm not in­flex­i­ble and know there are two sides to every sto­ry.

We're en­ter­ing an in­ter­est­ing pe­ri­od and all-weath­er maid­ens re­main the best op­por­tu­ni­ty for back­ing win­ners, our ul­ti­mate ob­jec­tive.

Los­ing runs come and go, win­ning is all about the long-term which is why you have to judge this col­umn on a mont­ly ba­sis, not dai­ly.

Pa­tience read­ers, it usu­al­ly pays off but it's they it's sel­dom found in a woman and nev­er in a man.

Lashkaal is (again!) napped when at­tempt­ing to make it fifth time lucky in the three-year-old hand­i­cap over an ex­tend­ed nine fur­longs; no 'cert' but clear 'best-in' on his best mark and, don't for­get, a lot of hors­es are tak­ing time to 'get there!'

Se­lec­tions

2.40 Lashkaal (nap-e.w)

4.40 Arc Cara

5.10 Bogsnog (e.w)