led, shaken up over 3f out, ridden and headed well over 1f out, weakened inside final furlong
raced keenly, disputed lead, ridden and lost place over 2f out, soon weakened
chased leaders, outpaced 3f out, weakened over 1f out
dwelt, soon in touch, outpaced 5f out, ridden and weakened over 3f out, soon tailed off
in touch, ridden and lost place over 2f out, weakened final furlong
chased leaders, pushed along and outpaced halfway, behind final 3f
held up, headway 4f out, stayed on to lead over 1f out, soon ridden, headed post
slowly into stride, held up and behind, ridden and headway over 2f out, kept on, no impression on first two
held up, driven and headway on inside over 3f out, hard ridden approaching final furlong, stayed on well under pressure to lead post
A decent contest here, with inexperienced handicappers Victory Venture and Carenage likely to be warm orders in the market, taking on seasoned campaigners like Distant Cousin and Sualda and the vote goes to one of those newcomers Carenage. John Dunlop's filly has had one outing a three-year-old handicap company, when third of ten at Newbury over 10 furlongs on her penultimate start. However, when stepped up to today's trip last time at Kempton she was a revelation, taking her maiden by six lengths and looking impressive. With more to come by the look of that success, she can step up again and score here. Victory Venture has to shoulder 2lb more than the selection and that could just be the deciding factor. The Mark Johnston-trained runner was a half-length winner at Catterick last time, but won with any amount in hand and could well be good enough to win here with that in the plus column. However, the handicapper seems to have taken less of a chance with the gelding and he is marginally overlooked here. Sualda would be good enough to take this comfortably on some of his old form, but although he is off something like a winning mark, he has struggled on his two previous runs from 2lb higher and he might just find that Distant Cousin will outpoint him for a place at these weights. Piri Piri was a 10 furlong handicap winner at Folkestone last time but has to prove he stays and so the vote goes to Carenage.
