Conditions should suit Harriet's Beau

NORTH Yorkshire trainer Mick Easterby should land Brighton's Fitzherbert Handicap with Harriet's Beau this afternoon.

Early speed is always at a premium on Brighton's switchback track, one of the fastest in the country, and a front-runner is very hard to peg back. Which explains Easterby's decision to send Harriet's Beau on the 270-mile trip down south.

The gelding has bags of pace and looks the ideal type for this course. Ignore his less than inspiring form figures - he has been unplaced in five outings this term - as he has been racing over longer trips and consistently beaten for stamina.

But those forlorn efforts over distances up to nine furlongs have helped the handicapper to forget his fair two-year-old form and he has been dropped fully a stone and a half in the weights since the start of the season.

Easterby would not send Harriet's Beau on such a long journey were he not convinced that he is in the shape to take full ad vantage.

Kieren Fallon should bounce back from suspension with a winner at Newcastle in the Bucknall Austin Handicap. He can make a winning return to the back of Falcon's Flame who put up an improved effort to land an apprentice race.

Spandrel has, given the strong impression she is capable of better on her last two outings and can prove the point in the JP Fruit Distributors Fillies' Handicap on Windsor's evening card.