Dedicated followers of form cannot fail to have noticed Ptarmigan Ridge (4.15) has slipped to a potentially winning mark for Thirsk's Polar Ford Handicap.

Linda Perratt's one-time smart sprinter endured a lean campaign during 2005 when, for virtually the entire season, he was swimming against the tide as the handicapper had him firmly under wraps.

The figures rack up as follows. Twelve months ago Ptarmigan Ridge was forced to race off a rating of 85, but having failed to trouble the judge for such a long spell, he's now plunged a whopping 11lbs down to 74.

Such collapses are useless if the individual concerned is going down the pan, however that's patently not true since the selection ran a corker when fifth on his Musselburgh return.

Although injury restricted King Orchisios (4.50) to just one start as a two-year-old, he's always been held in the highest regard by trainer Kevin Ryan, based just a stone's throw up the road at Hambleton Lodge.

Both the standard of his impressive work on the home gallops, plus the emphatic nature of a scintillating Haydock debut triumph last June, put King Orchisios in the higher echelons of the yard's pecking order.

Not surprisingly, stable confidence was pretty solid when he made his Newmarket reappearance, only for the new trip of seven furlongs to reveal a major deficiency in the stamina department.

Kevin has taken the hint and swiftly opted for a return to the minimum distance in feature event on the card, the £20,000 five-furlong handicap, a race which could set the wheels in motion for a crack at some even bigger booty.