MUGHAS (2.40) makes plenty of appeal as the best bet on the card in the £18,000 Antigua & Barbuda Handicap Hurdle at Wetherby this afternoon.

There's a distinctly Caribbean theme to many of the race titles at today's venue and it seems more than likely the long-distance Wiltshire-based raider is going to make things way too hot for his seven rivals.

Alan King's gelding contested many of the top two-mile handicaps the season before last but unfortunately injury put him on the sidelines for just over a year-and-a-half.

Following such enforced absences horses often go to pieces and never recapture their old form, though thankfully this appears not to be the case for Mughas, a superb second to the enigmatic Jazz d'Estruval on his Haydock comeback.

Napped by the column on that occasion at mouth-watering odds of 10-1, it was utterly ironic we caught Jazz d'Estruval on one of his going days, which is not always the norm for the Nicky Richards-trained grey, the type to down tools for no apparent reason.

The predicted mud bath should also suit Sharp Belline (2.10), who lost nothing in defeat when chasing home Sir Storm at the course 19 days ago.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and no blame is attached to trainer Sue Smith for deciding to drop Sharp Belline down to two-and-a-half-miles, a trip over which Sir Storm simply possessed the better turn of foot.

Perhaps she had no choice at the time, however, now returned to his right distance in the Trinidad & Tobago Handicap Chase, the consistent nine-year-old might well take some pegging back from his position at the foot of the weights.

* Trainer Penny Buckley and conditional jockey Des Flavin lost their appeals against the punishments handed out by the Market Rasen stewards over the running and riding of Hermano Cordobes.

The Jockey Club disciplinary panel found them guilty of schooling the horse in public and upheld the penalties that followed division two of the AC Office Supplies Maiden Hurdle on Boxing Day.

However, the panel concluded the rule breaches were 'the result of naivety and inexperience, and were not part of a premeditated plan'.

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