Up a bit, down a bit.

There was only one race last week in terms of sprint action on the flat and that was at Doncaster on Friday which Annunciation won.

Most clockwatchers of the race put this down as an improved performance on his part and it was something that was not lost on the handicapper whose BHB blog post is below :

HANNON FIRES AN EARLY WARNING
If someone had told me I would be spending Lincoln day digging my car out of a four foot deep snowdrift rather than taking a trip to Town Moor I think I’d have called them crazy, writes Stewart Copeland.
However my weather troubles aside, I had at least one turf race to get my teeth into on the opening day of the season, which was the 6f handicap for three-year-olds.
Richard Hannon looks to have his team fit and firing already, and it was his colt Annunciation who carried top weight to victory, making all under a positive ride from last year’s champion jockey, Richard Hughes.
Annunciation showed useful sprint form as a juvenile and had run creditably in a listed race at Chantilly the previous week. He showed the benefit of that outing and stepped up further still on that effort, showing himself as good as ever. Successful off a handicap mark of 94, I have Annunciation running to a rating of 99. On this evidence he’s well worth another chance in listed company.

Looking at the placed runners, Heaven's Guest and Smart Spender were the least experienced runners in the field so in the circumstances, with Annunuciation already having had a run at Chantilly, they did well to finish second and third. As a result the handicapper has raised Heaven's Guest a lenient 2lb to a mark of 79 but Smart Spender has been left on the same mark of 80 and both look capable of winning over the next few weeks particularly as Richard Fahey said that Heaven's Guest would improve for the run pre race.