Saturday 29th March, 3.50pm, Doncaster
The start of the British Flat season takes place tomorrow from Doncaster and the feature race of the day is the William Hill Lincoln Handicap.
This race is always an excellent watch, but it’s extremley competitive and right now, we have 19 runners ready to compete. It’s held over a distance of a mile and the current Going at the Yorkshire track is Good.
When looking at the odds, you can see that as many as three horses are sharing favoritism as Gabrial’s Kaka, Tullius and Off Art are all being offered at 8/1 to come out on top.
Looking at Gabrial’s Kaka to begin with, he was last seen finishing second behind Seek Again at York back in October and produced some good performances over a mile last campaign.
He runs for Richard Fahey, who looks set for a big season and should run a big race.
Tullius has been well supported in the market and much of that could be down to the fact he runs for in form trainer Andrew Balding.
The horse was disappointing when finishing seventh of ten at Kempton in November, but he didn’t seem to enjoy the all weather surface on that day.
On some decent ground over a mile, the six-year-old has some good form, including wins at Salisbury, York and Windsor last year. He might ideally like a bit more rain between now and Saturday afternoon.
Off Art is the bottom weight in this encounter and in his four runs so far, has managed three victories for Tim Easterby.
He won here over seven furlongs in similar conditions back in May last year and has since produced a win at Ayr over this distance of a mile, so has good form. It’s going to be interesting to see just how he runs here.
Whispering Warrior has a couple of runs under his belt this season as he’s raced twice in March over a mile on the all weather. He was poor at Lingfield, but clearly needed that run as he then went onto score at Wolverhampton.
He’s at 11/1 to take this one and could be a very good each-way bet.
Sweet Lightening is then at 12/1 and has a chance as he won this race back in 2011. Last year’s winner, Levitate is then at 14/1 to repeat his success of twelve months ago.
As mentioned, it’s an extremely competitive field and the other horses entered – who are at 16/1 and over – are not without a chance.
We think that the form of Balding’s yard is tough to ignore though and like the look of a bet on Tullius at 8/1. Whispering Warrior is another eye-catcher at 11/1 in the EW market.
