TOP-WEIGHT may not be enough to prevent La Persiana (4.15) landing the richest race of the day, Yarmouth's £28,000 totesport Virginia Handicap.

For followers of the record books, La Persiana is bidding to go one better having finished runner-up in the sought-after mile-and-a-quarter listed affair exactly 12 months ago.

Since that time she's been remarkably consistent, making the frame on several occasions prior to her latest silky smooth success under the resurgent Alan Munro at Salisbury last time out.

Along with the rest of the Willie Jarvis-trained horses the four-year-old mare is in flying fettle at present, and even taking into account the obvious strength of the opposition she's going to be hard to peg back while clearly right on top of her game.

Jarvis has an excellent chance of completing a double via Marcaroni Gold, whose recent journey from Newmarket to Newcastle proved to be a waste of time and money.

Transporting racehorses up and down the country is an expensive business, so the owners of Macaroni Gold (4.45) must have been gutted when footing the bill for a long distance raid to Tyneside, only to be denied a clear run up the home straight.

The five-year-old wasn't simply hampered once, he was in actual fact repeatedly short of room from the three furlong to the one furlong pole.

It's amazing to think Macaroni Gold could have found so much trouble in a two-mile contest, nonetheless that's precisely what occurred.

It appeared that without the aid of a helicopter there was no way he was going extract himself from his difficulties.

Neil Callan was in the saddle that day, however he's been replaced by the favourite to win this year's jockey's championship, Jamie Spencer, who will surely plot a wide passage in order to give the selection every opportunity to do himself justice.

Although Brighton is a notoriously difficult track to negotiate, Song Of Vala (4.00) didn't let his stride pattern become unbalanced when scoring over course and distance earlier this month.

The South coast venue presents a unique set of problems as participants must first gallop flat-out downhill, prior to hitting a tricky dip at full tilt and then having to re-adjust for the sharp incline to the winning post.

Seeing as the leaders regularly go off too fast, one of the secrets is to ride a waiting race, precisely the tactics adopted by cool-as-you-like Steve Drowne, who brought his mount with a sublimely-timed challenge when the partnership prevailed on their latest visit.

The presence of hat-trick seeking Out For A Stroll in the Banbas Handicap will hopefully mean Song Of Vala goes off at odds of 7-2 or better, a perfectly reasonable price in a race which looks tailor-made for his hold-up run-style.

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