SEA PRINCE IS READY TO REIGN

Jeremy Grayson reveals 11 jumps horses well worth keeping a close eye on

- Jeremy Grayson

PERTH, 11 June (Good to soft) 2m7f207yds (+92yds) 0-110 Handicap Hurdle (class 4)

On an afternoon which saw Gordon Elliott and Sean Bowen swat away most of what was put before them, second place behind their Mrs Paisley was always perhaps going to be the best outcome on offer for SEA PRINCE in this routine stayers’ hurdle. Mike Smith’s son of Great Pretender enjoyed the return to Scone Palace all the same, and all the more so a switch to assertive tactics that kept him interested for longer. Although a near-3l second here represents a vast improvement on all previous attempts at 3m in Irish points (4PPPP), he didn’t hit the line so strongly as to suppose this necessarily represents his optimum trip all of a sudden, whereas it takes little to imagine him holding on if a similar strategy to today’s is deployed back at 2m4f next time.

SOUTHWELL, 12 June (Good) 3m60yds (+257yds) 0-100 Handicap Chase (class 5)

Only four were still meaningfully involved on the turn for home in this low-grade stayers’ handicap but they still managed to get in each other’s way somewhat from that point on, with MISTER MEAD, far from done with at the time, the chief sufferer when left short of room and unseating two out. It had been a highly encouraging chasing bow up to that point for Alexandra Dunn’s Malinas homebred, whose dam Double Mead had been booted to victory in all bar two of her 19 point-to-point/ hunter chase wins by Dunn herself. Less able to stand his racing thus far than his younger sibling Toad Of Toad Hall, twice already a Fontwell 3m2f chase winner for the same connections, he is at the right end of the weights to pick up a few bottom drawer summer 3m handicaps if able to keep sounder longer from here on.