18:30 Chelmsford

I’m pleasantly surprised the Charlie Fellowes-trained GORAK isn’t clear favourite for this. This horse remains unexposed especially over 7f and he ran a big race in defeat off this mark when runner-up at Southwell last month. I thought he responded well when asked and he just bumped into a better handicapped horse on the day. Chola Empire has been beaten since but bumped into the potentially exciting Kingdom Come for Clive Cox so the form does stack up.

He is open to improvement on just his third start for this yard and finds himself in a winnable race so there shouldn’t be too many excuses. Politics heads the market at the time of writing and he has been in good form since joining Mick Appleby winning twice but he has been on the go now since April which is a bit concerning. He ran well at Lingfield last time but is up another 2lb and probably doesn’t have a great deal in hand off his current mark.

Gorak - 1pt