River Tern, who got off the mark for the season at Thirsk last Monday, returns to the north from his Chepstow base tomorrow with excellent proposals of completing a double at Redcar.

Milton Bradley's six-year-old goes for the featured £10,000 Tote Sprint Handicap and is strongly fancied to defy the 6lb penalty he picked up for his latest success.

River Tern is not the easiest of horses to ride as he needs to be held up and produced late, but Kevin Darley timed things to perfection at Thirsk, bringing him through to strike the front 100 yards from the finish to beat Zuhair by a cosy length and a quarter.

Darley has the mount again tomorrow and can enable River Tern to produce an encore.

Sheriff Hutton-based Darley also has good prospects on Mantles Pride in the Evening Gazette Classified Stakes and Rosa Canina in the Skelton Maiden Handicap.

Hambleton trainer Kevin Ryan admits that Cool Prospect has got him baffled with regard to his best trip. The four-year-old has been tried at a variety of distances at up to a mile and a half and none seems to suit him any better than the other.

Tomorrow it's back to sprinting for this enigmatic gelding in the Redcar Amateur Riders' Maiden Handicap. In a race little better than a seller, and with Emma Ramsden in the saddle, Cool Prospect will not get many better chances of winning a race. That said, bets should be kept to a minimum!

Also worth noting is Legal Issue, who is selected to go one better than his runner-up effort behind Hakeem at Thirsk last Monday in the Levy Board Handicap.

The focus of attention at Sandown's evening meeting will be top American jockey Gary Stevens, who has teamed-up with Sir Michael Stoute as his number one jockey for the rest of the season.

Stevens, who will partner the Stoute-trained Beat All in Saturday's Vodafone Derby, has some choice mounts at Sandown and has good prospects of making the winners' circle aboard Asef Alhind (6.15) and Random Kindness (8.15).

But Stevens, who will be aboard Cloudy Sky in the Bookham Maiden Stakes, may have to settle for minor honours behind the Kieren Fallon-ridder Marnor, who is awarded the nap vote.

This son of Diesis, trained by Henry Cecil, has been working in the style of a high-class performer on the Newmarket gallops and is strongly fancied to make a winning debut.

The feature race at Sandown is the £30,000 Brigadier Gerard Stakes, a Group 3 contest, which features the reappearance of the hugely-talented Kissogram, who promises to take high rank among the older horses this season. Luca Cumani's four-year-old is a tempting alternative to the likely favourite Chester House, who represents Cecil and Fallon.

The £16,500 National Stakes offers Rowaasi a valuable opportunity to make amends for her narrow debut defeat at Newbury.

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