Lincoln Handicap: Sound-a-like heads 3 against the Flat field
Published:
Before Aintree’s Grand National in a few of weeks time, the Flat season’s traditional curtain raiser, Doncaster’s 1m Lincoln Handicap, will be upon us.
Three-time winner William Haggas is tipped by many to become the joint most successful trainer in Lincoln Handicap history with 6/1 jolly Mange All, but only three of the past 13 favourites have triumphed, so hopefully we can do better than that.
Here are our three double-digit fancies against the field:
We never got to see Aidan O’Brien’s Nell Gwyn running in the Nell Gwyn Stakes in 2007, despite the Oaks outsider being among the early entries for the April Newmarket mile.
Mick Channon’s Lincoln winning the Lincoln would more than make up for that disappointment, and the four-year-old clearly stands a live chance after besting all in both his 2014/15 starts so far, albeit back in September.
Half of the last dozen horses who took this were four years old, and Lincoln shouldn’t be overburdened by weight of 8-11.
Dermot Weld was the last Irish-based trainer to win the Lincoln with Saving Mercy, who came in at 14/1 all the way back in 1984, and the King of Ballybrit looks to be in with a fair shout of a second triumph with this six-year-old.
Stuccodor justified 11/2 favourite odds in the Irish Lincolnshire at the Curragh 12 months ago and has had a couple of decent runs since, finishing a close-up third on his seasonal reappearance in Cork five months ago and coming second out of 22 runners when sent hurdling for the first time on New Year’s Day.
With an official rating of 108 there’ll be no secrets kept from the handicapper, but four horses have carried between 9-03 and 9-10 to win this since 1999. Stuccodor is currently set to go off with 9-08 on board, so he’s not without a chance.
Richard Fahey’s son of Jeremy finished sixth in last year’s Lincoln on soft ground, and although he will go off a few pounds higher this year, a bit of rain would see him bang in the picture at a nice price.
Fahey took this with 25/1 shot Brae Hill two years, who carried the same 9-1 load Gabrial’s Kaka is set to lug around.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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