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THE start of the flat mixes it with the back end of the national hunt season on Saturday afternoon with really good prize money up for grabs across several cards. The most interesting meeting for me has to be the Musselburgh card with the premier race being the one-and-three-quarter-mile Queen’s Cup at 3.35, in which the Andrew Balding-trained Spirit Mixer is likely to start favourite.

The Kingsclere trainer has started the season in really good fashion and this five-year-old ran in some top staying/middle distance handicaps last year with his best run arguably coming at Newcastle in the Northumberland Plate. He will be a tough nut to crack if ready first time up and I make him the main danger to ONESMOOTHOPERATOR.

Braan Ellison’s charge had a lovely pipe-opener behind Earlofthecotswolds at Wolverhampton when last of five, but holding every chance until the race developed into a sprint from the two furlong pole. That run should have sharpened him up and a drop to a mark of 94 in the weights is an added bonus.