Monday Racing Tips: Key Timeform data including a Horse In Focus

• Handle With Care shaped well on handicap debut

• Somespring Special takes the eye on stable debut

• Southbank can be excused latest effort

• We are now NRNB on the 2025 Grand National

Horse In Focus Handle With Care to step up on promising return

Lingfield's card starts with a competitive fillies' handicap over six furlongs (13:47) where the in-form Marco Botti is represented by Handle With Care.

She made the frame in all three of her starts last year, finishing second in a maiden at Wolverhampton on her final two-year-old outing. Handle With Care then shaped well on her handicap debut following a six-month absence when fourth at Kempton earlier this month.

While she took a strong hold and took a little while to get organised, Handle With Care finished her race off well and kept on to be beaten just over a length in fourth behind the winner Macedonian. That earned Handle With Care the 'Horse In Focus' flag. She tops the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings here ahead of Toughly who finished a couple of places behind her at Kempton, and Handle With Care is of strong interest off the same mark here. 

Somespring Special has Timeform's Trainer Uplift Flag

Small fields are the order of the day at Wincanton, including in the two and a half mile handicap chase (16:30) which isn't the easiest to weigh up despite there being just four runners.

However, a couple of them aren't in much form so it could be worth siding with the mare Somespring Special who has the 'Trainer Uplift' flag making her first start for the in-form stable of Philip Hobbs & Johnson White. She hasn't run since last July when having her only outing for Chris Gordon but has a particularly good record at this time of year.

All four of her career wins for Anthony Honeyball have come away from testing ground in the spring, including a couple of handicap chases at Plumpton and Cheltenham last April. Somespring Special tops the Timeform weight-adjusted ratings by 3 lb here and, in a race that might not take much winning, looks capable of capitalising on being dropped in the weights since her last run. 

Top-Rated Southbank can gain a deserved success

Newmarket trainer Stuart Williams and promising apprentice Warren Fentiman teamed up for a 10/1 winner at Southwell last Friday and the same pairing have a good chance of striking again in the six-furlong handicap at Wolverhampton (20:00) with Southbank.

One of several course-and-distance winners in the field, Southbank gained his first career victory over Wolverahmpton's six furlongs last winter and went on to win four times in all on the all-weather in 2024. He has continued to operate consistently since the last of those wins at Chelmsford in December. He twice finished runner-up at Wolverhampton over the winter from slightly higher marks than he runs from here and can be forgiven his latest start back at Chelmsford where he wasn't seen to best effect but still managed to finish third.

Southbank is a solid performer at this level and, heading the Timeform weight-adjusted weights and with his rider taking 5 lb off his back, he looks capable of having his consistency rewarded again here.

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