Kicking King on restoration trail

While there can be little doubt that he is still alive, today he could at last get the chance to show whether he is also kicking. True, the meeting at Gowran Park is subject to an inspection, but with luck Kicking King will finally make his first start since 2005, when he won the Gold Cup and his second King George VI Chase.

The Normans Grove Chase has already been postponed twice this week, due to appalling conditions in Ireland, and Nickname can be expected to give Kicking King a hostile reception over just two miles and one furlong. But Tom Taaffe, his trainer, is anxious to get him on the move again after that long absence with a tendon injury.

Taaffe says that his visit to Co Kilkenny is "all about match practice" and Barry Geraghty, his rider, was playing down expectations yesterday. "We just want to get him back in one piece," he said. "Hopefully we will see a glimmer of what we had two years ago. I sat on him last week and jumped three fences on him. He winged them, just as he would have two years ago. There's plenty of life in him. The old fire is definitely still there."

With Central House likely to drop out after bruising a foot yesterday, Kicking King could face just two rivals, both specialists at this kind of trip. Newmill, a Cheltenham champion himself, is another whose trainer is also desperate to give him a run. Nickname will take all the beating on ground he loves, having made a very promising resumption at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting.

Boggy ground at the same track means that Sublimity is unlikely to contest the AIG Europe Champion Hurdle there on Sunday. After walking the track yesterday, connections took the commendable step of contacting Betfair to advise them as such. Charles Egerton has meanwhile gone to similar lengths to ensure that no punter backs Hobbs Hill for the Royal & SunAlliance Chase at Cheltenham. Immaculate in four starts over fences, Hobbs Hill is considered unlikely to get three miles round Cheltenham, and Egerton is not looking beyond a race at Sandown next month.

Pedrobob, already a Festival winner over hurdles, will be going nowhere for the rest of the season after his trainer, Tony Mullins, revealed that he has suffered a setback. Having won a novice chase by a distance at Leopardstown's Christmas meeting, he was one of Ireland's leading hopes for the Irish Independent Arkle Trophy. Though his leg injury is "very slight", it will leave Pedrobob short of experience in open company next season.

Rain even reached Nad al Sheba in the days preceding the first meeting of the Dubai International Carnival, causing the turf races to be transferred to the dirt track, but the grass is back in use today. Asiatic Boy, one of the stars of the Carnival last year, before a modest experiment on turf in Britain, drops back to six furlongs for a Group Three race. He may find it hard to beat a specialist at the trip in Diabolical, one of the top sprinters in the United States and now making his debut for Godolphin.

The perils of track management have seldom been more apparent than when five of the last seven races at Warwick on 6 September had to be abandoned following the discovery a patch of softer ground. Yesterday the British Horseracing Authority found the Warwick executive in breach of its rules, having failed "to ensure the course was fit for racing when wholly extraneous circumstances did not prevent it". Warwick now faces a fine of up to £15,000, and possible claims of compensation from owners whose horses were expensively transported to the meeting in vain.

Watering had taken place earlier in the day, but a statement from the track's managing director, Huw Williams, expressed disappointment in the verdict: "We maintain the course was fit for racing and that the meeting need not have been abandoned," he said.

Chris McGrath

Nap: Neardown Beauty

(Southwell 2.30)

NB: Hora

(Southwell 4.00)