Market Rasen

The second-highest rated horse here, Master Haku arrives from Ireland with a question mark hanging over its last run — it was pulled up at Kilbeggan 48 days ago after a 23-length defeat the time before. Crucially, it has never raced on normal ground conditions like today, so how it handles the surface is a genuine unknown. There is a win in there from earlier this year, but recent form makes it hard to trust at this stage.

The standout angle here is that Nobotheratall has the best record in the field on normal ground conditions, winning twice from five races on it — no other runner can match that specific experience. The six-year-old is also in decent recent form, winning at Kelso before running second at Hexham, and while it is rated well below the top two, it clearly handles these conditions well. The jockey-trainer partnership wins roughly 1 in 10 races together, which is modest, but the ground form is a genuine factor in its favour.

The least experienced runner in the field with just four races to its name, Show Your Hand ran two very close seconds before being pulled up last time out at Worcester 17 days ago. That pulled-up run so recently is a concern, and this is a new jockey-trainer combination with no history together. There is a glimpse of ability in those two near-misses, but at 18-to-1 against more established rivals, it needs to bounce back sharply.

The most experienced horse in the field by a long way — 18 races compared to a field average of 8 — and still waiting for a first win, which tells its own story. At 101-to-1 and rated 36 points below the field average, this is comfortably the lowest-class runner here, and a 65-length defeat last time out makes it hard to argue otherwise. It is wearing cheekpieces and the jockey has never ridden it before, so there is very little here to suggest today will be any different.