Reed sets sights on Musselburgh feature prize with Ruinous

Tim Reed, who rode on the opening jumps card at Musselburgh in 1987, bids to win today’ s Salt ire Race day feature event at the east of Scotland venue.

Now a successful trainer based alongside H adrian’ s Wall in Northumberland, he saddles Ruinous, who is one of five declared runners for the racingtv.com Novices’ Limited Handicap Chase over two miles.

The gel ding, formerly trained in Ireland by Gavin Cromwell, will have his initial run for new connections having changed hands for £16,000 at Goffs Sales in September.

It will be the five -year- old’s first appearance since his comfortable debut over fences in a beginners chase at Downpatrick in early August.

His opposition includes Gaelik Coast, who extended his winning streak to three with a narrow success at Fakenham on his reappearance last month. Donald Mccain’s topweight is ridden by champion jockey Brian Hughes, the most prolific rider ever over jumps at Musselburgh where he has 85 winners to his name.

The fixture is supporting the Scottish Flag Trust with four of the races named in honour of Scotland’s national flag.

Meanwhile, Indefatigable can live up to her name in the Racing TV Mares' Hurdle at Kemp ton. Paul Webber' s Cheltenham Festival heroine returns over jumps for the first time since her last-ditch triumph in the Mar tin Pip e Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle in March.

On the basis of that success, and several previous performances over shorter than these extended three miles, she can be expected to relish the extra distance in this Listed race.

Indefatigable, who retains her Cheltenham association with Rex Ding le, should be ready to run close to her best form after a highly-respectable return on the Flat - beaten a little more than 10 lengths at Listed level on Lingfield's Polytrack at the end of last month.

If she is therefore hard to oppose, the same applies yet more so to Shishkin in the preceding Racing TV Beginners' Chase.

There will be scant finan - cial reward for predicting a winning de but over fences for the Arkle favourite, who has assumed his position at the top of that ante-post market thanks to three successive victories for Nicky Henderson last season which culminated in Cheltenham glory in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle.

It will be a major shock if he does not consolidate his reputation here.