William Hill Extra Places Every Day Nursery – 1.35 Doncaster – Friday 23rd October

The weather forecast has taken a bit of a turn for the wetter everywhere this week, and that allows a possibly very tasty bit of ante-post value to be had in Friday’s William Hill Extra Places Every Day Nursery Handicap at 1.35 at Doncaster.

Most of the 17 strong list of entries would much prefer decent ground and have indeed been operating to a decent level on such throughout the summer, but given the ground on Town Moor is already ‘good to soft’ with the prospect of a good bit to come, we will certainly be looking at ‘soft’ ground at the very least come Friday.

So, a horse who has already shown a liking for those conditions is Tim Easterby’s Mind Your Steps and is available as a 1-star * bet for WhichBookie at 25/1 each-way with William Hill, Sky Bet or Paddy Power, and is a second ante-post bet for the weekend ahead.

Mind Your Steps’ dam is Spinatrix, who absolutely loved a mud-bath and not only has produced soft ground winners but is also herself related to them, and so it is no surprise that Mind Your Steps showed up well in a nursery on soft ground at Ayr’s Gold Cup meeting.

He was perhaps a little unlucky not to finish closer that day, and then travelled better than anything to between the 2f and 1f markers over 7f at Haydock Park following that, when he ultimately didn’t stay the 7f and so faded. He still went through the mud well for a long way.

Last time, in Redcar’s Two-Year-Old Trophy, again he was stopped a little in his run but came home well to finish 6^th and the handicapper hasn’t overburdened him with a 5lb rise, given he was mixing it with a number of 90+ rated performers, including Champions Day runner-up Satellite Of Love.

Back in a handicap and with the ground turning, Mind Your Steps is a bet at anything down to 10/1 at this stage.