Malina Girl bids to provide Fergal O’Brien with a second victory in the last three runnings of the Unibet Alan Swinbank Mares’ Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race at Market Rasen on Friday.
The Ravenswell Farm handler saddled Dysart Enos to land the Listed prize in 2023 and last year saw Dream Shadow finish third as a hot favourite.
Point-to-point winner Malina Girl made a successful debut under rules in a Ludlow bumper last month and O’Brien is looking forward to raising her sights.
He said: “We like her and she’s very straightforward. We maybe didn’t expect her to go as well as she did at Ludlow, but she won it very well and hopefully she’ll come on for that run.
“It’s a deep old race on Friday, but we’ll give it a go. It’s hard to gauge the other mares in the race as they’ve only had one or two runs, but we like ours so fingers crossed she’ll run well.”
Likely favourite is The Flaggy Shore, who also won in the Irish point field before impressing on her bumper introduction at Warwick.
Trainer Ben Clarke said: “Since she crossed the line at Warwick this has been the plan and she’s been trained for the race specifically.
“We’d have been very disappointed if she wasn’t bang there (at Warwick), I’d be lying if I said I thought she’d go and win quite in that fashion, but she’s got a beautiful temperament and has been well educated by Derek O’Connor in Ireland.
“She had a little away day in Lambourn three weeks ago, we’ve been very happy with her preparation and we’re very excited about her, so fingers crossed she can go and produce another good performance.”
Dan Skelton’s Katios Queen has already shown up well at this level by finishing third in a Listed contest at Huntingdon on her second start, while the Alcester handler also saddles Jollie Dame, who was best of the rest behind The Flaggy Shore at Warwick.
Red Wine Supernova (David Pipe), Galaxy Star (Alan King) and Lady Litigator (Anthony Honeyball) also feature in an open race.
There are plenty of familiar names on show in the preceding Unibet Middle Distance Chase Series Veterans’ Handicap Chase, with the weights headed by Donald McCain’s stable stalwart Minella Drama.
The 11-year-old made an encouraging start to his campaign when third in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree, but disappointed at the same track on Boxing Day and McCain is hoping a move into veterans’ company for the first time will help a horse who has become difficult to predict.
McCain said: “He’s all duck and no dinner Drama, isn’t he? He’s got two ways of going and it either works out or it doesn’t.
“There have been other chances to run in veterans’ races. I entered him at Aintree and he ran in the Old Roan instead and it did seem the obvious next step down the road.
“It’s a slightly lesser level to what he’s been running at, but he’s got to turn up. He seems in great nick, but we thought he was in great nick on Boxing Day.
“Sometimes he gets a bit het up and messes the whole thing up, but there’s been no ill effects since his last run and he’s ready to go.
“He won the Sidney Banks when it was run at Market Rasen a few years ago so he’s handled the track before, which always helps.”
Minella Drama’s rivals include the Nicky Richards-trained Doyen Du Bar and Warren Greatrex’s Bill Baxter, who was last seen finishing sixth in the Becher Chase over the Grand National fences at Aintree.