RELIABLE Rotuma (3.15) represents a solid bet at in the feature event at Beverley, the £14,000 mile-and-a-quarter Nick Wilmot-Smith Memorial Handicap.

Trainer Michael Dods has done great job with Rotuma, who won for the third time this season when getting the verdict by a head over heavily-backed favourite, Burgundy, at Leicester last Sunday.

The battling victory was all the more creditable since it was achieved on ground faster than ideal, a situation not likely to re-occur this afternoon with the going reportedly on the easy side of good.

Mention must also be made of Rotuma's rider, the excellent up-and-coming young jockey Danny Tudhope, who once again takes the mount, having been seen to great effect on the selection at the weekend, when his 7lb allowance clearly made all the difference in what proved to be a tight finish.

At Sandown, the smart each-way money will likely be on Point Of Dispute (3.25), a lively outsider for the seven-furlong Rectangle Handicap.

Peter Makin's veteran has been saved to race in the late summer and autumn, showing his first signs of form for 2004 by chasing home Boundless Prospect at Newbury in July.

Using his third placing behind Hilltop Warning and Beluga Bay at Newmarket over an identical distance 12 months ago as a yardstick, Point Of Dispute has a sporting chance off a 2lb lower mark in this afternoon's contest.

The main attraction at Salisbury undoubtedly revolves around the reappearance of Lucky Story (4.15) in the Group 3 £60,000 Sovereign Stakes.

An early-season setback cruelly robbed Mark Johnston's colt of a crack at the 2,000 Guineas, the one-mile colts' Classic in which he had long been pencilled in for following his fabulous four-timer during an all-conquering juvenile campaign.

"We're are coming into this not feeling 100 per cent ready and to some extent he might need the race, but if Lucky Story puts his best foot forward he'll take an awful lot of beating," explained Johnston.

Not too many of the horses will be suited by the predicted testing surface at Haydock, however that comment does not apply to Princely Vale (6.30), in with a great shout of picking up the six-furlong nursery.

Dorset-based handler Bill Turner also had his gelding entered at Chepstow, a far easier journey than ploughing half way up the dreaded M6 to participate at the west Midlands venue.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that Turner feels his two-year-old has a simpler task at Haydock, a hint that this column chooses not to ignore in the relentless pursuit of decent-priced winners.

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