Timeform Radio Tip / Rory Delargy / 20 November 2010 /

Rory Delargy looks ahead to a mouth-watering afternoon of racing with the likes of Master Minded and Imperial Commander amongst the stars who will be in action.

This corresponding weekend last season provided some of the most memorable races of the season and with top class action at Ascot and Haydock in particular, there promises to be no shortage of thrills this afternoon.

The one problem for value seekers today is that most of the interesting races have very short-priced favourites, and justifiably so. For the record, I think most of the "shorties" will win, but the one I couldn't advise punters to include in their doubles and trebles is Imperial Commander. True, his record fresh is very good and he was a moral winner of this last season. It's also possible to forgive him a poor run at Aintree in April as he clearly hadn't recovered from a slog in the Gold Cup, but that was a slog, and there's no guarantee that we'll see him performing to that level again - history is full of impressive Gold Cup winners who were bottomed by the race and he could well be the next in that line. I very much hope not, but that worry certainly stops me backing him given his past fragility.

On the other hand, quotes of Evens and bigger about Master Minded in Ascot's Amlin 1965 Chase at 14:05 strike me as being hugely generous. There are questions about him after last season, but Nicholls has had a clear run with him of late after last term's hiccups and he showed at Newbury that his enthusiasm was fully intact. I'm no fan of the cult of the breathing op, but the procedure carried out in the close season certainly won't have harmed him and suggestions that he won't stay this 2m3f trip are nonsense in my eyes. For all that he was hugely impressive when winning his first champion chase, he's always looked best going clockwise and the way he destroyed his field in the Victor Chandler Chase here two seasons ago suggest that Ascot is his ideal venue. Even if Albertas Run runs to form, he will struggle to beat the jolly and it's worth bearing in mind that he was receiving weight all round when winning this race last season. Master Minded looks a banker @ [2.04] to my eyes.

Zaynar took the Coral (Ascot) Hurdle in striking style from Karabak last year and can repeat the dose today, despite being 6 lb worse off. Both Karabak and Silviniaco Conti will be overbet here, the former because Alan King is in such good form (there's no reason to believe he didn't run up to form last year) and the latter because he turned over hotpot Captain Chris in novice company last time. But this is a necessary step up in class and the runner up suffered a breathing problem there. It's possible that the Henderson runner will drift from a morning price of [2.72], and I'd be inclined to wait before getting involved, but in truth, that's a perfectly fair price about the likeliest winner.

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