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

ROYAL ASCOT is just around the corner and my brief selections for next week are at the bottom of this week’s editorial which takes us to Sandown Park, York and Chester et al this afternoon.

The main betting contest of the afternoon is the class two Handicap at 2.05 with a field of 16 set to go to post over the stiff mile. With plenty of rain around before today, any sting in the ground should be a thing of the past and that shouldn’t be a problem for the likely first two in the market, Dancing Magic and Dual Identity. The last named, a multiple course and distance winner, may just be in the pocket of the handicap and may well need a career best to land this and I just feel BILL SILVERS could improve past both of them.