soon in touch, chased leader from 10th, hard ridden and not fluent last, rallied to lead towards finish, all out
raced keenly in touch, led after 5th, hard ridden approaching last, headed and no extra towards finish
behind, outpaced from 9th, never on terms
led, headed 5th, chased leaders, ridden and lost touch 10th, kept on one-paced from 2 out
chased leaders until ridden and weakened 3 out
always behind and outpaced, tailed off and pulled up before 2 out
prominent until ridden and lost touch 10th, weakened approaching 2 out, soon beaten
An uninspiring handicap chase where you can put a line through Red Alert Man (very moderate and out of the handicap) and Birotex Boy (out of the handicap, out of form and without a win in 19 starts). Spilaw does have form on soft ground in France, but has not been seen out since last year and has fitness to prove. Nephite has a couple of ticks against him as both a course winner and a confirmed soft ground performer, but he too is out of sorts at the moment, while both Profiler and Lislaughtin Abbey would much prefer faster terrain. By process of elimination then, the TEAMtalk vote goes to top weight Del Trotter, who was travelling well enough when crashing out three from home at Kelso recently. But as his namesake would say "He who dares wins" and providing he can get his jumping together here he can take this contest.
