held up in rear, headway over 3f out, soon ridden, onepaced final furlong
held up, keen early, ridden over 2f out, never on terms
keen, prominent, led over 6f out, hung right from over 1f out, ridden out
prominent, pulled hard, driven to challenge over 2f out, onepaced final furlong
held up, headway over 3f out, ridden and hung left over 2f out, kept on
held up in touch, weakened final 3f
held up in touch, raced keenly, ridden to challenge over 2f out, weakened over 1f out
pulled hard in touch, ridden over 3f out, weakened over 1f out
held up, ridden over 2f out, never dangerous
led until over 6f out, weakened final 2f
held up, switched right over 2f out, ridden and headway over 1f out, onepaced
In a competitive opening handicap, Counsel's Opinion just gets the vote ahead of Shami, Nadour Al Bahr and Internationalguest. Chris Wall's six-year-old encountered a good deal of trouble in running on his reappearance in the Rosebery Handicap at Kempton, eventually finishing 11th behind Broadway Score, with Nadour Al Bahr (eighth and Solo Flight (ninth) both reopposing here. He had to be snatched up twice at a crucial stage of the race, and would have finished a lot closer with a clear passage. Last season, he showed how effective he could be over this trip when beating the useful Chai Walla at Doncaster, and on a line through the runner-up he appears to have the beating of David Loder's Shami, who is sure to be well supported following his second placed effort at the Craven meeting. Nadour Al Bahr is another who did not get the best of runs at Kempton and is likely to fare better than that, but he seems notoriously difficult to win with and would be more suitable for placepot purposes. Solo Flight is probably best over further and would ideally like fast ground as well, so he is passed over. A bigger threat may come from Internationalguest, who won his last two races of 2002. George Margarson's horse is capable of going well fresh and will relish this ground. Ionian Spring was a good winner at Newbury last time, ahead of Athenian, but both are likely to find this company a bit tougher.
