There was no joy to be had on the last day of posting, with solitary selection Elusivity succumbing to bad luck not long after he came out of the stalls. That bad luck came in the form of him getting hampered by the favourite and cost him many lengths, more than he was beaten as he flew home to finish just a couple of lengths behind the winner. You're not going to get away with losing that amount of ground in a 5f sprint and I genuinely believe that he would have gone very close had the interference not occurred. Sadly, it did.

-2.00pts on the day. Form of last 10 selections; 9-2-5-7-2-5-0-0-3-7 (0 winners & 3 places).

Just the one selection for today at Newmarket and apart from that, it will be interesting to see what biases will pop up given the rain of late. Hopefully some do, some that we can take advantage of tomorrow and on Saturday, though it'd be nice if they didn't hinder today's bet! He's likely to be ridden quite prominently and that's what I think you're going to need at the meeting if the ground is going to be on the soft side, but that obviously remains to be confirmed. There will be plenty of chances to get involved in the coming days and let's hope that it can kick-start a return to form for us, which is certainly long overdue at this stage.

4:40 Newmarket - Long Awaited - 2pts @ 9/1 (General)

Everybody on here will know that I keep a particularly close eye on David Barron's runners and I have long had the opinion that he would turn Long Awaited into a very decent sprinter. This lightly-raced 4-year-old only came to the yard in the off-season, having previously been with Roger Varian, and he made a really impressive debut when winning over 5f at Doncaster on heavy ground. The way that he moved effortlessly into contention on ground so testing was eye-catching to say the least and although he didn't win in the same style, it was his first run for 244 days and surely he would have been expected to improve quite a lot for the run. The Epsom Dash was deemed his next target and it would have been a perfect race for him if it wasn't for the fact that the ground was quick, as he's by Pivotal and clearly a lot better when getting cut. He was rousted along throughout, didn't get the best of luck in-running and ran a predictable race, proving that he wasn't quick enough to get involved on such ground. It wasn't a bad run by any means though and the fact that he didn't run up to his mark can be excused. The reason for today's price-tag is that on his last outing for Barron, he failed to fire completely despite getting his ground at York and it must be that he was amiss that day, as he never travelled. Those drawn high were struggling in that race though, bar the winner who was on the speed throughout and has since proved that had plenty in hand at the weights, so I'm going to completely overlook that piece of form. It's also possible that the race came too soon for him after those Epsom exertions (just 13 days later; seems to need time between races). This test is likely to be right up his street, with the pace being relentless on ground that will test the majority and it is likely to be run in order to let Graham Gibbons hold onto the animal for longer than he could at Doncaster, which will be a huge help. That's all assuming that he's at the top of his game here, because he won't have too much to hold onto if the same horse who ran at York turns up once again here. Any potential draw-biases popping up could scupper our plans as well but there's enough pace around to suggest that everyone will have a fair chance and a sit in stall 5 doesn't look to be a hindrance just yet. Overall, I think that this mud-lover can win off his current rating of 87 and is a very attractive bet at the price with conditions to suit. It's a horribly open race at the same time, so the usual stakes are all that we can afford to play on this fellow.

Result - 10th @ 10/1; Badly hindered when coming with a decent run.