Provided he has come through his last start okay Onpicalo is the right sort of favourite to be banking on at Sandown.

Onpicalo showed plenty of promise in his younger days, rated 92 by Timeform in his first campaign, and ran up to that form winning handicaps at Caulfield and Morphettville last year before injury intervened.

He has clearly put that behind him, though, with a five length romp at Caulfield two back returning a new peak figure and his latest hardly a step backwards when setting a strong gallop and running a brave second in big figures against the clock.

He should get a softer time of things today with the race looking to pan out nicely for him and provided the latest hasn’t flattened him he should get it done with his form clear of the remainder.

The same stable sends out Seenaan in the opener and he looks a strong winning hope based on his debut Flemington win.

There he returned rock solid figures, better than those returned by what looks a fairly modest lot behind him on deeds to date, and the step to 1400m doesn’t look an issue on the evidence to this point.

At $5.00 he’s well worth a ticket.

A strong looking Australian Hurdle sees a clash between the proven star Gotta Take Care and the emerging jumping talent in Fieldmaster who hacked up by cool 20 lengths going over obstacles for the first time this season last start.

Fieldmaster is set to measure right up here on that performance and remains untapped over hurdles but the early market has the gap between him and the Galleywood winner too large in our opinion.

There is no value in red-ink about Fieldmaster and he is best avoided at the current quote.

THE MELBOURNE MAIL:

Banker: Race 8 #7 Onpicalo @ $2.25

Play Of The Day: Race 1 #1 Seenaan @ $5.00

Lay Of The Day: Race 4 #4 Fieldmaster @ $1.95