GRAEME RODWAY

Weblog: On the Ten To Follow trail

Bonus Window opens gates to respectability

So the Bonus Window is open and after Starspangledbanner gave me further reason to celebrate with victory in the July Cup, I'm ona bit of a high and looking to restore further pride in my list, which is now gathering momentum.

Don't get carried away Rodders, I hear you say, you only have two scorers. Well yes that is a fact, but I feel I now have the platform to build on and if I can just get my two additional selections right, I may yet be able to get myself above the all important mid-table barrier in my private competition. Yes mid-table respectability is in sight!

The King George is the race to concentrate on if your list is missing Workforce and Harbinger and just like last year, Sir Michael Stoute holds the trump card.

I've already alluded to the point that I'm unconvinced of the strength of this year's middle-distance classic generation, and I have my doubts over whether Workforce's seven-length win in The Derby can be taken at face value. The disappointments of many of the fancied runnersin behind, and the proximity of fair, but not top class At First Sight gives the form a very suspect look. Ryan Moore has chosen Workforce and he got it right last year when taking Conduit over Tartan Bearer, but this time I think he is on the wrong one and I'm going to make Harbinger my first bonus selection.

I gave up on this horse after he disappointed in the Great Voltigeur at York last season, and I was convinced he wasn't top class after he was thrashed by High Heeled at Newburyon his final run of last term. However, the beauty of the Bonus Window is that it gives you a chance to put right the mistakes you made at the start of the season and abig part of this game is being prepared to admit when you're wrong. He has proved me wrong in some style this season, putting together three consecutive victories, and I'm now converted.

It was his latest win in the Hardwicke Stakes that tilted the scales back in his favour as I was at Ascot that day and as he passed me in the cheap seats (yes I do go in the cheap seats, no hobnobbing here) 2f out, I could not believe how easily he was travelling. The race was soon put to bed and while Duncan was flying on the outside, he got nowhere near this impressive beast, who maintained the gap all the way to the line.

The form could hardly be working out any better after the subsequent successes of distant third Barshiba in the Lancashire Oaks, and well-beaten fourth Sans Frontieres in the Princess Of Wales's Stakes, with fifth home Redwood taking second in that contest. On that form, Harbinger is a serious Group 1 horse.

I have a lot of sprint/mile angles in my list, but another thing I got wrong at the start of the season was ignoring the form of the Greenham, as one-two in that contest Dick Turpin and Canford Cliffs have become the two dominant three-year-old milers of the season. With Goldikova now expected to be lightly raced in preparation for a third Breeders' Cup tilt, I think the Hannon-pair will dominate the top 1m races from now on and after his impressive St James's Palace success, I'm going to have to plump for Canford Cliffs.

Having initially been against him, he is another who has completely converted me and this strong traveller, who has a potent turn of foot, is now one of my favourite flat horses in training.

The problem earlier in the season is that the Hannon-team hadn't quite worked out how to get the best out of him, riding him too prominently in the Greenham, and then when they did get the tactics right in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, the slow early pace provedhis undoing. A superstar miler in the making, he has put those two disappointments firmly behind him with back-to-back Group 1 successes and there should be more to come.

Ten To Follow:
Awzaan
Elusive Pimpernel
Fame And Glory - 65
Fencing Master
Mister Manannan
Pollenator
Rip Van Winkle
Siyouni
St Nicholas Abbey
Starspangledbanner - 82
Canford Cliffs
Harbinger
TOTAL: 147