YORK'S magic will be savoured at first hand tomorrow by Flared Nostril and here's hoping the grey cloud wings it and the coffee's piping hot in Betty's.

The Yorkshire Cup is the main prize - and to fill it full of Black Sheep ale is not easy.

A tricky old race it is by jove with Duncan likely to go off favourite on known form, but a miler and a halfer going into unknown territory for me.

Luca Cumani's Manighar get Keiran Fallon's help and has a touch of class, evinced from being campaigned mainly abroad in solid races, and I'm more worried about Clowance, especially as the gutsy mare gets a 3lb pull.

But the Knavesmire turf is a good drainer and she might need it a little softer and is just passed over.

Mark Johnston's Vocational was being touted as one of his best two-year-olds on the Easter stable visit and gets my support in the 2.30pm opener, a trappy contest for sure, but she is out of a Lowther/Cheveley Park winner in Carrie on Katie.

Surely there is more to come after a narrow Warwick maiden win.

John Dunlop's runners have a great strike rate here - 25 percent and that makes Awsaal deserving of respect despite a steadier of top weight in the 2pm mile and a half handicap.

Hanoverian Baron and Lovers Causeway are the progressive dangers to me, but this is a very open contest, so I side with the stats and Awsaal is an each-way choice.

On last year's form Theyskens Theory should dot up in the (Michael Seeley Memorial) sportingbet.com Fillies Stakes.

Brian Meehan usually has a winner here and he is radiating positives about the Bernardini filly, although a criminal price is pushing me illogically to Primavere, who should come on a bundle for a "much better than" fourth behind Dorcas Lane and is held in high regard - go on.. the the choice by a nose.

Western Sunset, trained by Mrs Karl Burke, would be a shock winner here but the trainer has gone on record that his Doyen filly is about to ruin a good handicap mark.

She needs to find a stone to worry Meehan's horse but stranger things have happened, - watch the market is my advice and dabble is there is a bite.

The 3.35 sprint is a real nightmare but I narrow it down to two - Jamaican Bolt and Gottcher, with David Barron's improver, the last-named of the pair, just edging it.

Other advice centres on Kevin Ryan's Our Jonathan, who has been gelded to concentrate the mind and is fancied to be too peppery for Horseradish in the six-furlong 4.10pm race.

Man of God is the final selection and he is bred in the purple even for a Gosden classic pretender as brother to Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Yesterday.

He's going places and is still entered in the Derby, but there's Ittirad and Pink Deva to beat, not easy, but he has God on his side.