Musselburgh Ladies Day today

If the weather forecast is correct there will be as many brollies as bottles of bubbly on show at Musselburgh’s Jenners & Frasers Ladies Day today but it will take more than a spot of rain to dull the enthusiasm of a 9000 capacity crowd.

The East Lothian track is celebrating its eighth successive sell out for this ever popular fixture and Grand National winning rider turned successful flat race jockey Graham Lee could prove a big with the ladies. Lee rode plenty of winners for Jim Goldie over the jumps and has already extended that profitable association on the level, so he will be a warm order to land the £12,000 HBJ Employment Solutions Ladies Day Cup (4.00) on the Goldie-trained Jonny Delta.

This promising stayer won a similar race on Scottish Champions Day at Musselburgh last autumn and made an encouraging reappearance over a slightly shorter trip at Hamilton last month. Jonny Delta will be seen to better advantage over today’s 1m 6f and is narrowly preferred to Philip Kirby’s five time course winner Amazing King. Graham Lee can initiate his winning double on Lean On Pete in the 1m £8,000 HBJ Claims Solutions Handicap (2.20). Trained by Ollie Pears, Lean On Pete was sent to the front too early when gambled on to score at Wolverhampton last time out and was caught close home. Lee has been booked to take the ride today and can be relied upon to get the fractions right over this shorter distance.

With the Jenners & Frasers Handicap Stakes divided, Musselburgh now has eight races with the first moving forward to 1.20pm, gates open at 11am.

Musselburgh Racecourse commercial manager, Karen Taylor, said regardless of the conditions the course was set for another successful Ladies Day. She said: “When the Olympic Torch visited Musselburgh yesterday (Thurs) we were bathed in glorious sunshine and we hope there is some left over for our Ladies Day. The forecast is not what we hoped for and race goers should come prepared but nonetheless we are sure it will be another great day of racing and fashion. With a 7000 attendance at the Edinburgh Cup, 9000 today and our next meeting on 29 June, we will have pulled in around 20,000 race goers in June and that is a great achievement by any standards.”