Horse Racing: Hanagan chasing winners

Published on Wednesday 1 September 2010 14:01

Paul Hanagan has a full book of rides at Musselburgh tomorrow and can bounce back from a day off through suspension to net a treble on the East Lothian track.

Hanagan has been setting the pace at the top of the table for most of the season as he chases his first champion jockey title and with ten weeks of the campaign left, he cannot afford to let up.

He faces another three-day ban next week, so needs to boot home the winners between now and then to preserve his lead. His boss, Richard Fahey, has provided 75 of his 136 winners and the partnership can prevail again with Changing the Guard in the main event - the Graham The Plumbers Merchant Handicap (4.10).

The four-year-old has yet to score from eight starts this term, but was runner-up at Beverley in May and was again second in a red-hot handicap at the Glorious Goodwood festival last month.

He went down by just half a length there after a sustained battle throughout the final quarter of a mile and had previously finished fourth in another competitive affair at Newbury.

The gelding has since finished unplaced in another competitive event at Sandown and the fact that Fahey sends him to contest such hot races in the south underlines how highly he rates the horse. Changing the Guard runs off a career high mark of 90 tomorrow, but there should be a good pace all the way and that will suit as he stays a wee bit further than this nine furlongs.

Hanagan can also take the concluding Racing UK Handicap (5.10) on Dubawi King whom he steered to a hard fought victory at Redcar last weekend.

His only previous ride on Nigel Tinkler's gelding also resulted in a victory at Hamilton in June when they beat Vittachi by a neck. The latter is now 2lb better off, so it will be tight again, but Dubawi King gets the vote.

Yorkshire trainer Tim Easterby helps Hanagan's title aspirations by giving him the mount on Boundaries in the Cala Homes Maiden Auction Stakes (2.40) and the youngster should score. The juvenile has yet to win in nine starts, but has been runner-up on four occasions and the drop back to the minimum trip here can help him to finally break the ice.

Easterby can make it a double with The Nifty Fox in the Racing UK Handicap (3.10). The six-year-old has winning course and distance form to his credit and was a close third here recently to Rasaman and Titus Andronicus.

He meets that winner on better terms now, while Titus Andronicus has since flopped at Epsom and looks an erratic customer who is still operating on a mark considerably higher than for his last win 16 months ago.

Joe Rowntree's Musselburgh selections: 2.40 Boundaries; 3.10 The Nifty Fox; 4.10 Changing the Guard; 5.10 Dubawi King.