The Jef­fery Ross Rac­ing Spe­cial

Aalsmeer should be too good for twelve ri­vals in the Maid­en Stakes over six fur­longs at New­cas­tle to­day, just a ques­tion of over­com­ing an eighty-one day's ab­sence. There's al­ways a rea­son why two-year-olds go miss­ing, es­pe­cial­ly a beat­en-favourite, which was the case when Aalsmeer fin­ished sec­ond at War­wick in June. Pri­or to that, Ed McMa­hon's charge post­ed a much bet­ter time-hand­i­cap mark over five fur­longs of York, dur­ing its May meet­ing.

Sta­mi­na isn't at is­sue. An­oth­er fur­long at this stage makes lit­tle dif­fer­ence to the run-style of ju­ve­niles. Aalsmeer is at least 10lb su­pe­ri­or to Love Delta, al­so a beat­en-favourite last time out, al­beit at a dis­tinct­ly low­er lev­el. Un­less there is a mys­tery lurk­ing amongst a clutch of new­com­ers, this is cut 'n dried for Aalsmeer, on all known form. 'If' is the biggest word in life. While so many dwell on it, oth­ers move on. Ed Dun­lop needs to be in the latt­ter cat­e­go­ry with Im­pli­ca­tion, a se­r­i­al run­ner-up and one of four­teen decs for the Maid­en Stakes over the round mile.

This is ab­solute­ly 'dif­fer­ent gravy' on the TH and sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Paul Hana­gan has been booked. Pound for pound there sim­ply isn't a bet­ter jock­ey around, world-wide! Im­pli­ca­tion faces what should be an easy task but Gal­lant Ea­gle needs to beat twice-raced Whip­per­way, in the Maid­en Auc­tion Stakes over sev­en fur­longs at Folke­stone. Chances are he will but I'll go each-way and make sure! Kieren Fal­lon fi­nal­ly got off the mark at Wolves on Sat­ur­day, much to his re­lief and the six-times cham­pi­on is worth back­ing on Kalam Daleel, in the open­ing four-run­ner Novice Stakes over six fur­longs.

Can we get yet an­oth­er four-timer?

SE­LEC­TIONS

RACE 3 (#2) KALAM DALEEL

RACE 4 (#10) AALSMEER

RACE 6 (#5) GAL­LANT EA­GLE (e.w.)

RACE 13 (#10) IM­PLI­CA­TION