BANGOR'S Beginners Chase looks an ideal opportunity for L'Antartique (1.20) to open his account over fences at only the fourth time of asking.

Ten days ago the track was under three foot of water but the floods have now receded and fingers crossed the fog and frost will stay away and allow Ferdy Murphy's promising young chaser to strut his stuff.

L'Antartique has not had the rub of the green of late, running up against two smart cookies in Heez A Dreamer and Royal Rosa on his two most recent outings at Uttoxeter and Wetherby respectively.

There was certainly no disgrace in defeat by those high-class performers, indeed L'Antartique did extremely well to make both pull out all the stops before accepting the inevitable.

Three of the five runners in the two-and-a-half-miler are pretty much no-hopers, but Murphy's six-year-old needs to be wary of Flintoff, owned in partnership by Paul Beck and England's current cricket captain of the same name.

The malaise which seems to have felled our team down under must be catching since despite being strongly fancied at Fontwell, Flintoff finished absolutely legless, literally staggering over the line some 50 lengths behind Charlie Mann's Hoh Viss.

It was sort of drubbing Ricky Ponting and his merry men have been handing out to our lads, a terrible hiding from which it's hard to recover, although in fairness to Flintoff the racehorse, he'd previously done little wrong.

Murphy also has the later three-mile Handicap Hurdle firmly in his sights via Carlys Quest (2.55), who, like L'Antartique, is due to be partnered by stable jockey Graham Lee.

Carlys Quest, a former winner at the 2005 Punchestown Festival in Ireland, suffered greatly for that famous victory in terms of handicapping because his rating shot skywards to a heady 159.

The gelding has been beaten on 14 successive occasions since that day over two years ago, nevertheless every cloud has a silver lining and he's now down to a far more realistic mark of 127.

Sooner or later Carlys Quest is going to strike, a couple of punters appeared to believe he was on the verge at Cheltenham in November, wagering between them £4,000 each-way, to win a total of £90,000.

In the event the money ended up in the bookies' satchels, however the mere fact the gelding made significant late headway strongly suggests they'll get their money back if brave enough to go back in.

Hereford's £25,000 totesport Handicap Chase features the money-spinning Kalca Mome (2.10), 11 times a winner from only 35 lifetime starts.

Kalca Mome represents every trainer's dream in that he's game, consistent, never knows when to give in and, like so many of the French imports campaigned in this country, jumps like a stag.

All of the above-mentioned points were never better illustrated than at Cheltenham a fortnight ago, when the eight-year-old produced a gutsy display to floor Bohemian Spirit in a battle royal up the awesome Prestbury Park hill.

"He's in great form and loves the soft ground, that's what really helped him at Cheltenham," revealed regular rider Richard Johnson, who clearly fancies his chances for the £25,000 showpiece.

Jonjo O'Neill is keeping Parkinson (2.45) to relatively low-grade races at present, a policy which is proving no bad thing seeing as he's won two of his last three starts.

Parkinson has been known to idle in the past, a trick he'd better not try with a certain A P McCoy aboard.

McCoy's vigour in the saddle is legendary, therefore if the five-year-old does down tools, he's likely be in receipt of a few lively reminders.

Best prize money on the all-weather belongs to Wolverhampton's six-furlong Go Pontin's Handicap, a sprint in which Lucayos and Stoneacre Boy (5.50) could well dominate the finish.

The betting market is almost certain to err in favour of Stonecare Boy who, after a long spell in the wilderness, came good courtesy of a hard-fought success at Lingfield last Saturday.

Peter Grayson's Malton-based dasher dropped down the ratings like a stone through water when out of form, which resulted in the three-year-old now being handicapped to win a couple more times before the weights catch up with him again.

Melpomene provided an early Christmas bonus for supporters of Janus (Colin Woods) by landing a 7-2 winning nap at Lingfield yesterday.*