always behind and outpaced
chased leaders, ridden and weakened over 3f out
soon led, ridden and headed 2f out, weakened inside final furlong
led early, joined leader halfway, ridden and every chance 2f out, weakened final furlong
chased leaders, ridden 2f out, chased winner over 1f out, kept on final furlong
chased leaders, ridden to lead 2f out, ran on
in touch, ridden and raced wide over 3f out, weakened final 2f
slowly into stride, soon with leader until halfway, soon weakened
First Maite and Miss Champers come out best in this race on official ratings with our vote going to the latter. If adjusted official ratings count for anything then Miss Champers has a very strong chance of landing this claimer. She also loves it here, being a dual course and distance winner, so she has a number of ticks in the right boxes. There are four other course and distance winners in the contest, these being First Maite, Maunby Rocker, Game Guru and Kumakawa. The first three-named appear to hold a better chance than Kumakawa, to our way of thinking. Of the others, Repeat is capable of running well at this level, as is Noble Pursuit, who hails from the in-form Paul Blockley stable. Blockley also runs The Black Monster, who was good enough to win in Ireland in the summer of 2002. She holds a good chance if getting back to the level of that form but has so far failed to reproduce it in Britain. Overall, though, it is hard to get away from Miss Champers if she is fully on song, and she gets the vote.
