Down to 4

The 3.00 at Ascot this afternoon is an interesting race. 14 runners and I want to back 4 of them - an easy route to the poor house.

Domaine De L'Isle won this last year and and after some poorish runs, he's been novice hurdling. This smacks of a plan to protect his handicap mark by his trainer Sean Curran. The plan, some might say plot, has worked as Domaine is on the same handicap mark for the victory 365 days ago.

Jerrysback is a painful horse for me, even though I backed him at 20/1 at Bangor 2 years ago and he won. The problem was that he clearly was not meant to win. The jockey rode him round the outside hard held all the way but from memory the likely winner fell and dear old Jerrys took himself forward to victory. My winner felt like a loser as he'd drifted to 50/1 (from 10's in the morning) and no I had not got best odds guaranteed. He's now well handicapped again and looks ready to win.

In the end though I have dropped these 2 (the best laid plans don't always work and backing Jerry again is just too painful).

So it is

Colorado Doc, who won very impressively at Plumpton and is a decent price (25/1) because he lost his action when pulled up at Newbury next time, and

Touch Kick - ran what looked like a bit of schooling in a jumpers' bumper at Newcastle earlier this week and that was possibly a prep for this. He's 66/1 so that plan might be more risky than the Domaine one but it comes with a bigger reward.