Gingembre, whose comeback trail will, hopefully, lead him to Ayr next month for the Scottish Grand National, a race he won in 2001, turns out at Doncaster tomorrow with the aim of keeping those dreams alive.

Lavinia Taylor's high-class performer goes for the feature race, the totescoop6 Grimthorpe Handicap Chase, and is fancied to take all the beating in this £25,000 event despite having to concede weight all round.

Gingembre, who was awarded the 2002 Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, missed the whole of last season through injury, but made a super reappearance at Newbury last month to finish fifth in the Aon Chase to Farmer Jack, who followed-up by winning the Racing Post Chase last weekend.

Gingembre should be all the better for his recent outing and has the class to come out on top tomorrow - and earn his place in the Scottish National line-up.

While Martin Todhunter's progressive Count Fosco, winner of his last two starts, gets the vote in the £20,000 totesport.com Handicap Chase, Mick Easterby has a fighting chance of landing the £12,000 Auckley Handicap Chase with The Nomad.

The nine-year-year-old has been far from disgraced since scoring three outings ago and should appreciate tomorrow's expected good ground.

Easterby also has an important race at Kelso with Parknasilla in the Cyril Alexander Memorial Novices' Chase.

A Wetherby winner two runs ago, Parknasilla was only just touched-off at Carlisle last time. He is napped to get back on the winning trail.

At Newbury, the £100,000 Vodafone Gold Cup is the richest race of the day and is the target of Le Duc, trained by Paul Nicholls and the mount of Ruby Walsh.

A winner at Cheltenham on New Year's Day, he has run well twice in defeat since, including over hurdles last time.

A quirky individual, he is also pretty talented, and a race of this calibre is within his compass, provided things drop right for him.

Updated: 09:48 Friday, March 04, 2005