Big Race Trends – The Lincoln Handicap

The month of April starts with the traditional Flat Season curtain raiser at Doncaster with the Lincoln Handicap and also features no less than three Grand Nationals with the Irish at Fairyhouse, the Randox Health at Aintree and later in the month the Scottish equivalent from Ayr.

In this bumper edition of Big Race Trends we will taking a closer look at each of the four major races to see if we can hone in on the traits that the past winners have shown prior to passing the winning line in front.

Let’s get started with the Flat Turf Feature…

The Lincoln Heritage Handicap – Saturday 1^st April – Class 2 4yo+ 1 mile Doncaster 3.35pm

The Doncaster Lincoln meeting welcomes in the start of the new Turf Flat season and it has lent itself over the years to be a cracking trends race to boot.

Last year’s race was won by the Mick Channon trained Johan, but he has now handed the training reins over to his son Jack after calling time on his 33-year training career at the end of last season.

As yet another sign of the changing landscape amongst the training ranks the previous year’s winner Haqeeqy was handled by what was at the time the new combi trainers of John and his son Thady Gosden.

We start proceedings with the possible effect of the draw. There is no obvious pattern with winners drawn right across the track in years gone by, but we did note in last year’s BRT that there had been a recent tendency for the winners to be drawn in stall 10 or higher.

Guess what, Johan did the business from stall 4, so that scuppered that potential trend!

The age stat is strong with 12 of the winners since 1997 aged 4yo including 5 of the last 6. 12 other renewals were won by horses aged 5 or 6 although the 4-6 year olds have made up the majority of the runners, but those aged 7yo and older are 1-95.

The classier type tends to win this and 10 of the last 12 winners carried at least 9 stone on their back to victory and 7 of the last 8 winners had an Official Handicap Rating of 100 or bigger.

Trainer wise William Haggas has won this three times since 1997 as has Paul Cole (now Paul & Oliver) although the latter’s last win was way back in 2001. The 2021 winner was the second in the race for the Gosden’s and there have also been two wins apiece for Richard Fahey (from 43 runners), Charlie Appleby (from 4 runners), John Quinn (from 10 runners) and Mark Tompkin’s (from 9 runners).

23 of the 25 winners since 1997 came from the top 12 in the betting and seeing as

around 20 to 22 runners’ line up that will help home in on the more likely types.

20 of the 25 winners had won over a mile or further and all had at least raced over this distance.

20 of the last 25 most recent winners had won a handicap race previously and 20 had won at least 3 of their careers starts.

This is not the race where you want to be breaking your maiden tag. In fact, between 3 and 5 career wins looks spot on and account for no fewer than 17 winners since 1997.

Based on the above the profile of the previous Lincoln winners includes the following traits:-

• Aged 4yo to 6yo with preference to the 4yo’s
• Carrying 9st or more or Rated 99+

• Trained by The Gosden’s, Richard Fahey, William Haggas or Charlie Appleby
• Top 12 in the betting
• Won over a mile or further previously
• 3 to 5 career wins
• Previous success in a handicap race
• Avoid maidens

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Steve Carter

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