Bogart can end long wait to add to tally

Ryan’s hope showed enough in runner-up efforts

BOGART can end a frustrating run of results by claiming a first victory since August 2013 in the Hawthorne Girls Handicap at Musselburgh.

The eight-year-old’s last two runs at Thirsk tend to suggest there is still enough fire in his belly to claim a small race like this five-furlong handicap.

Bogart twice finished runner-up at the north Yorkshire circuit, but fortune has not been on his side.

He could not do much more on both occasions, but simply bumped into better-handicapped horses in The Armed Man and, most recently, Memories Galore.

The Listed-winning son of Bahamian Bounty has been left alone by the handicapper on an appealing mark of 81 in what is hardly an epic encounter.

Quite where Kevin Ryan will go with Bogart if he takes a step backwards today is anyone’s guess, so he should be trying his heart out. MAGICAL EFFECT should go close in a seven-furlong handicap at Catterick.

Ruth Carr’s inmate has been in good order this month and tootled home in a race at Redcar on August 12.

He was then stepped up in grade for the Silver Trophy at Ripon and did not let anyone down, finishing third behind Teruntum Star and Red Pike.

Nothing was finishing faster than Magical Effect so it makes perfect sense to give him another chance over this longer distance.

Nine-year-old mare WHITECREST is respected when she returns to the fray on the Lingfield turf.

John Spearing’s honourable warrior won over course and distance in May and runs off the same mark of 71 in this 188Bet-sponsored handicap over six furlongs.

Her form has been solid enough since that narrow Lingfield success and she did better than her finishing position might have suggested at Goodwood on Friday.

It is also good to see Luke Morris, who has won four times aboard Whitecrest, back in the saddle.

SELECTIONS:

CATTERICK: 1.50 Cool Spirit, 2.20 La Sioux, 2.50 Question Of Faith, 3.20 Magical Effect, 3.50 Searanger, 4.20 Spirit Of Zebedee, 4.50 Mambo Dancer, 5.20 Foxtrot Knight.

LINGFIELD: 1.40 Malcolm The Pug, 2.10 Goodnight Girl, 2.40 Indicia, 3.10 Freebe Rocks, 3.40 Whitecrest, 4.10 Chunky funky monkey ,4.40 Ban Shoof, 5.10 Hermosa Vaquera.

MUSSELBURGH: 2.00 Three Saints Bay, 2.30 Billy Roberts, 3.00 Sakhalin Star, 3.30 BOGART (NAP), 4.00 Take A Turn, 4.30 Tectonic, 5.00 Suwaan.

DOUBLE: Bogart and Magical Effect.

Picture: Getty Images. Neil Callan drives Bogart on to his last win – at York in August 2013.