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

A RACE that will go a long way to determining the staying champion chaser of the season, the 3pm start at Haydock Park, is the feature event of the day this afternoon. 

Bristol De Mai is looking for a fourth success in the race, and although the ground will be marginally on the soft side of good, it shouldn’t inconvenience the now 10-year-old grey. 

The problem is, in tandem with the other mud-lover in the field, Royal Pagaille, deeper ground would lessen the chance of their six rivals and suit them so much better.

Both horses have an affinity for the Merseyside track, but if the current going description — good to soft (good in places) — is maintained, there are essentially quicker entries in the line-up than these.

Top of the pile is the Gold Cup runner-up A PLUS TARD, who at the age of seven remains a work in progress and is the most likely winner.

His high cruising speed, allied with his ability to quicken up at the end of a three-mile race on this ground, makes him the stand-out runner.

Apart from one win in France in his formative years, all of his best runs have come going left-handed. This flatter finish will also suit him so much better than the uphill climb at Cheltenham, when he was basically outstayed by Minella Indo at the Cheltenham Festival.

Second in last year’s King George at Kempton Park, Waiting Patiently looks the biggest danger to the selection, with his outstanding record fresh.

The 10-year-old has since moved from Ruth Jefferson to the up-and-coming Christian Williams, and this looks his best chance of Grade One success at the top table this season.

Following a wind operation and after a stop-start campaign last year, Imperial Aura needs to return to his best. Next Destination could also be tapped for toe over this flat track.

I am not writing Bristol De Mai off completely as he won the 2018 edition on good ground, but he is 10, going on 11, and the younger legs of the Irish raider may be too hot for him to handle this year.

The big betting race of the day is the Stayers’ Handicap Hurdle, due off at 2.25, and all the ante-post money has been for the lightly raced Riggs, from the in-form Dan Skelton yard. He will surely rate higher than his current mark of 127 and has been crying out for this step up to three miles.

With Brinkley and Martinhal perhaps better on softer ground, the each-way play against the favourite could be the progressive BASS ROCK (nap).

A wind operation seems to have worked wonders for the Sandy Thomson-trained charge, and his recent Carlisle win over two-and-a-half miles was gained with consummate ease.

Of course he will have to deal with a significant rise in the weights and in class, but with just the seven runs under rules he remains open to significant progress.

Elsewhere on the card, impressive Newton Abbot-winner MIGHT I can make the most of the 3lbs he is set to receive from the Paul Nicholls-trained Sonigino in the listed novices’ hurdle, which kicks off the card at 12.10. 

Meanwhile, the three-and-a-half-mile handicap chase at 12.40 could well fall the way of SPEAK OF THE DEVIL. The Lucinda Russell-trained charge has been crying out for a step up to this kind of trip, based on his last few runs.

Unlike many of his rivals he comes here with a recent run under his belt, when a rallying second over three-and-a-quarter miles at Carlisle at the back end of last month.

Away from Haydock, the big race of the day is the Grade Two 1965 Chase at Ascot, over an extended two-and-a-half miles, at 2.05.

Dashel Drasher won twice over the course and distance last year and looks sure to go close to adding to his four wins from seven chase starts.

However, I would not be so keen on taking the 9/4 available now, and the most obvious play against him has to be another course specialist in BENNYS KING.

He badly needed the run here last month when three miles would have been a shade too far for him, and he gets the vote over another Ascot winner — the returning Defi Du Seuil.

GO MILLIE GO may be able to defy top weight for trainer Stuart Edmunds in the mares’ handicap hurdle at 1.30, while the Ascot Hurdle (2.40) looks at the mercy of stayer’s hurdle hopeful and Cesarewitch winner BUZZ.

The two all-weather cards on the flat at Lingfield Park and Wolverhampton are also interesting. At the Surrey venue I shall be taking an interest in TAAWFAN (nb) in the one-mile handicap at 12.35.

He was just a little bit too keen on his last start at Newmarket when a well-backed 4/1 joint favourite, and hopefully that run should have taken the fizz out of him.

Later on, ROSE HIP should be able to give the weight away to the hat-trick seeking Seixas in the five-furlong handicap at 1.45 under 5lbs claimer Mollie Phillips.

At Wolverhampton I am particularly keen on the fit-from-hurdling CITY ESCAPE, the each-way play off 60 at 5.00, while the return to this Tapeta surface should suit ONE HART in the extended seven-furlong handicap at 5.30.