Disclaimer: Compulsive gambling can harm your health and relationships, and leave you in serious debt. If you have a problem with gambling and you’d like to stop, support and treatment is available. To find information, support and counselling on gambling addiction, please visit the NHS website: www.bit.ly/NHSGambling

THE big betting race of the weekend is undoubtedly the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle with 20 horses set for a lung bursting rush over a circuit of the Gosforth Park track at 2.05.

The ante-post favourite, Post Impressionist, has been the big gamble this week from 10/1 to half those odds, but it was clear at the back end of last year that a test of stamina was exactly what this son of Teofilo wanted. 

He was upped from an extended 10 furlongs to 14 in one go and that resulted in a desperately unlucky run at Haydock when behind Double Cherry, but he more than made up for that when beating the same horse at York in a very competitive three-year-old handicap off a mark of 82. Of course a 13lbs higher mark asks plenty more here, but it would be natural to assume that the step up to two miles on only his second all-weather start could glean even more improvement.