Hardy Dancer can collect top prize

HARDY DANCER can collect the most valuable of the 101 races at 16 meetings in Britain today on racing's busiest day of the year. He looks to have been laid out for the £20,000-added Westminster Taxi Insurance Rosebery Handicap at Kempton by his shrewd trainer Gary Moore and has excellent credentials.

The colt is still unexposed over this mile-and-a-quarter trip, having been largely campaigned at shorter distances last year.

Though useful at a mile, he tends to be beaten for speed once the pace quickens when racing at that trip and will prove much better suited by the longer distance. He is open to plenty of improvement back at 10 furlongs and is potentially very well treated at the weights.

Hardy Dancer showed he comes to hand early by winning his first two starts last season and his trainer has left nothing to chance this time, as he gave the four-year-old a pipe-opener on the all-weather track at Lingfield a month ago.

Moore gained one of the biggest wins of his training career when Warm Spell took the Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle at Kempton in January and he has every chance of a successful return visit today.

John Dunlop is doubly represented in the Magnolia Stakes, a Listed 10-furlong contest, 35 minutes later.

Pat Eddery rides Captain Horatius, a splendidly consistent seven-year-old who landed this prize in 1993 and again last year. But he may have to give best this time to stable-companion Medaille Militaire, the mount of Richard Quinn, who looks a Group-race winner in the making.

The colt landed a hefty gamble in the Britannia Stakes at Ascot last year, prior to a most impressive victory in a rated stakes event at York.

Though far from disgraced when fifth on his pattern race debut at Ascot in September, the four-year-old looked decidedly ill at ease on the softish going and will do a good deal better returned to a sound surface.

Medaille Militaire will find the going ideal now and he can take advantage of race conditions which leave him unpenalised for last year's successes.

Dunlop should also be on the mark at Nottingham where a step up to a mile and three quarters will make Minnisam hard to beat in the Easter Bunny Handicap.

Most valuable race at the day's 12 jump meetings is the Welsh Champion Hurdle at Chepstow which can go to Clifton Beat. The five-year-old showed himself at the top of his form when runnerup at Aintree and will be hard to beat on the firm surface which suits him so well.

Former smart hurdler Valfinet would be the form choice at his best but he is easy to oppose after two poor efforts over fences this term.