Ground conditions at both Warwick and Kempton Park are likely to decide the winners of the two big weekend handicaps tomorrow. A month ago, clerks of the course and groundsmen up and down the country feared it might never rain again. Now it seems to pour almost every day and, as a result, it is essential to back horses that revel in the mud.
The big race at Warwick tomorrow is the Wigley Group Classic Handicap Chase (3 p.m.) over a marathon trip of 3 miles 5 furlongs. With the going already ‘heavy, soft in places’ and with more rain forecast, only gritty battlers who can handle the ground are going to play a hand in the finish.
Step forward LORD DU MESNIL who can’t have the ground soft enough, and who ran a lovely race on his seasonal debut to be second to the well-handicapped Le Milos.
That horse from the Dan Skelton yard went on to win the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury (that’s the Hennessy in old money) and so there is nothing wrong with the form.
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