PROVIDED Pole Star (1.50) puts in a clear round he'll be hard to peg back at Newbury this afternoon.

The seven-year-old useful former flat racer has quickly adapted to jumps, breaking his hurdles' duck by breezing to a cosy five-length success over Rash Moment at Doncaster in December.

Now that Pole Star is getting in the swing of the National Hunt game, he seems sure to build on that victory and could conceivably make up into a serious Cheltenham Festival contender, especially if as expected he passes the post in first place for the Fabulous Fakes Novices' Hurdle.

Blundering Mulligatawny (2.25) tossed away the rare chance of a monster 20-1 winning nap when crashing out at the half-way stage of a course and distance contest precisely a fortnight ago.

Philip Hide's mount was going along supremely well before marginally misjudging a fence and ignominiously dumping the hapless jockey on the seat of his pants. I'm confident that if Mulligatawny had stood up he would have been involved in the finish and therefore gets the nod to make amends in the three-mile Harwell Trophy.

Not many 12-year-olds manage to prevail at grade one tracks such as Newbury, but Captains Table (3.00) might be about to buck the trend in the Racing Club Handicap Chase.

Frank Jordan's veteran hasn't got a great deal of miles on the clock and given the way he gave Banker Account a fright at Leicester his turn cannot be far away.

Finishing runner-up to Banker Account was an excellent effort in view of the ludicrously lenient handicap rating held by that particular rival. In addition, Captains Table was also well clear of the third horse home, Cracking Dawn, another positive indicator as to the overall reliability of the composite form.

Ferdy Murphy's enjoying an absolute purple patch at present, which might be potentially enhanced even further should Union Deux (3.35) put his best foot forward.

Union Deux was bitterly disappointing when trying for his hat-trick at Wetherby 49 days ago, however he'd been pretty impressive prior to that and a nice refreshing break over Christmas won't have done his prospects any harm at all.

David Nicholls doesn't seem to mind running his horses in claiming races, and my gut feeling is that he'll have to part with Awake (1.30) once the speedy eight-year-old has done the business in the second on the card at Wolverhampton.

Awake was a listed class performer on the turf at one time, so to find him toiling away in two-bit all-weather events comes as a bit of a surprise. Whatever the reason for the downgrade, Awake very nearly won at Southwell on his reappearance and I don't believe he'll make any mistake in the Bet Direct Apprentice Claiming Stakes.

The Banded fixture at Lingfield is of a diabolically low standard, however, if you back Shaman (3.55) in the lucky last at least the statistics tell us he's won at the track in the past, plus the gelding ran quite well over hurdles on his most recent start