Racing:York in running for Royal switch
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Your support makes all the difference.York and Newmarket are the early frontrunners to stage the Royal meeting in 2005 should the extensive building work at Ascot preclude the Berkshire's course ability to stage the now five-day meeting.
"Basically, it [moving the meeting] is an option," Nick Smith, head of public relations at Ascot, said yesterday. "We are getting to the stage in the planning process where we are looking pretty carefully at the options for 2005.
"The redevelopment work will be at its peak at that point and we have to consider if we can provide an acceptable Royal Ascot environment during a major building process. We take a decision later in the year.
"York has been mooted as the frontrunner and they have got a fantastic track and it would be well received by those providing the action on the track. There's a lot of work to be done though and York would not be the only option, a course like Newmarket also springs to mind. That decision is a long way away though."
Ascot needs no help however with today's Tote day meeting, a Flat card sandwiched between the track's ongoing National Hunt programme. It is a new card, featuring a new race, the first over five and a half furlongs at the Royal course.
Market research has told us there is a requirement for a three-year-old sprint at this stage of the season, apparently. This afternoon's contest should inform whether connections have a genuinely decent horse or a bog standard handicapper.
The form of Willhewiz (next best 3.30) tailed off in the second half of last season, but, if he can return to the level which made him a candidate for the Windsor Castle Stakes at the Royal meeting then this is his for the taking.
There are televised slots too for Haydock and, rather more unusually, Market Rasen. At the former, Valleymore will be a short price to complete a hat-trick after his recent Uttoxeter victory, yet the value here lies with one of the vanquished that day, Tensile (nap 3.05), who was returning after a lay-off for that contest, is a course and distance winner and has shown he can win in small fields. That is a hat-trick of its own.
Davids Lad is set to miss next Saturday's Grand National after his owners failed to get the Irish Turf Club's 42-day ban on the horse lifted in the Supreme Court in Dublin yesterday.
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