ROYAL BELUGA might need to make a little more room in his trophy cabinet after the running of today's Forbra Challenge Gold Cup at Taunton.

The Tom George-trained seven-year-old has been crying out for three miles, having performed with credit on his last two outings over markedly shorter trips.

A distinct lack of gears was particularly noticeable on his most recent start at Ludlow, where Royal Beluga simply couldn't respond when the pace quickened with four fences to jump.

Most jockeys would have given up the ghost and stopped pushing, but not Jason Maguire, who galvanised the nap selection to such good effect that Royal Beluga (3.20) made up a prodigious amount of late ground to finish hard on the heels of the leaders in fourth spot.

Now racing with a vital extra half-mile to travel, the seven-year-old will have much more time to find his feet, which should eventually allow his undoubted stamina to come into play when Maguire goes for broke on his mount in the final leg-buckling stages.

Although Richard Johnson is having great difficulty keeping tabs on Tony McCoy at the head of the jump jockey's championship, he could cut McCoy's lead at Taunton if, as expected, Double Honour (2.30) and Willie John Daly (3.00) do the business.

Philip Hobbs is responsible for both of Johnson's mounts, both of which hold outstanding prospects if the official BHB ratings are not to be laughed at.

Double Honour did nothing wrong at Ascot a couple of weeks ago when third to leading Cheltenham Festival hope Our Vic, while the massively consistent Willie John Daly really doesn't know how to run a bad race.

Tom Hamilton's strength-in-the-saddle may well prove the determining factor in the outcome of the mile-and-a-half Littlewoods Bet Direct Handicap at Lingfield.

Tom was seen to maximum effect when forcing Bramantino (3.10) to a narrow success at Southwell last week.

Clearly suited by strong handling, Richard Fahey's gelding has only picked up a 6lb penalty for that victory.

For my money such a relatively lenient rise might not be sufficient to anchor the long-distance Malton raider, especially as I've got a sneaky feeling that Bramantino will be even better suited by the track here than the slower Fibresand surface he triumphed on at Southwell.

In the closing Daily Special Offers Handicap, look out for the game and genuine old-timer, Sammy's Shuffle (5.10).

David Chapman's 13-year-old, Redoubtable, scored at the course on Tuesday, so with four years in hand of Redoubtable, supporters of Sammy Shuffle need not be unduly worried that he's also getting a bit long in the tooth.

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