The William Hill Lincoln: Five talking points ahead of Doncaster curtain raiser

Dry week could count against Qirat

The big southern yards often travel north to plunder the Lincoln pot as Sir Michael Stoute, John Gosden, William Haggas and Charlie Appleby have shown over the years and they don’t come much bigger or more southern than Ralph Beckett’s stable these days.

He’s got the ante-post favourite Qirat in here in the Juddmonte silks and the four-year-old has the sort of profile you dream of for this race.

Hugely progressive at three and unexposed after just nine career starts, the son of Showcasing could easily be Group class and he’s got lots of big-field form (watch him winning a 14-runner race at Goodwood, below), so there’s plenty to like.

However, despite Saturday rain the forecast looks warm and dry all week in South Yorkshire and all of the evidence suggests Qirat needs at least a bit of cut in the ground to show his best. Such conditions may not materialise which will give the rest of the field hope he can be beaten.

Irish Lincoln winner unlikely to turn up

Seventh in the betting at 14/1 is Tony Martin’s Irish Lincolnshire winner, Orandi, but the seven-year-old looks likely to give the race a miss.

He’s given himself a chance of getting in the race after picking up the 5lb penalty for his Curragh success, but he too probably needs testing ground.

Whatever the weather does Martin issued this warning in the aftermath of his Curragh win, in any case: “He’s in the English Lincoln but I doubt if he’ll run. He was ready to peak there today, and we’ll probably sit on our laurels for a while.”

Native Warrior heads will-they-make-the-cut horses

All eyes will be on the six-day entries on Monday to see who is taken out and Karl Burke will be hoping quite a few of those above number 33 Native Warrior miss the race in order for his son of Wootton Bassett to get in.

He should do in a maximum field of 22 and the four-year-old could take a significant step forward this season now he’s been gelded as he showed plenty of promise at three.

Too keen to fulfil his potential on occasions, he still racked up some really good form and if he can just relax a little he’s got a race like this in him.

Another horse who would be really interesting for the race should he make the cut is Ed Bethell’s Naepoint, another newly-gelded four-year-old.

He ended the last campaign with a couple of all-the-way wins at Redcar, the son of Blue Point seemingly blossoming at the backend of the season.

Those wins bumped him up 10lb to a mark of 88, a rating that would’ve just sneaked him into last year’s Lincoln, but at number 54 in the list before Monday’s latest entry stage he’ll need a fair few to fall by the wayside.

Whip Cracker could have fitness edge

Most Lincoln winners come into the race fresh these days but it’s still worth considering those with a fitness edge and Whip Cracker is an interesting contender for Richard Hughes.

The son of Cracksman was very well backed into 9/4 favourite in the trial at Wolverhampton on March 8 and he ran an eyecatching race, staying on takingly for fourth off a messy gallop (see free video replay, below).

That was a slight career-best effort but he looks just as good on turf and he won’t mind conditions if they’re not testing.

Magnum Opus the Meydan horse

Finally, we’re going back a bit now but there was also a time when the horses that had been running out in Dubai were firmly on the radar, Sweet Lightning in 2011 and Secret Brief in 2016 both winning the Lincoln after campaigns at Meydan.

The Crisfords’ Magnum Opus fits the bill this year, the son of Invincible Spirit improving in Dubai in the winter following the application of headgear.

He won a good handicap on February 21 with subsequent winner Max Mayhem back in third and he followed it up with another excellent effort behind Silver Sword last time.

A strongly-run mile looks his bag on that evidence and he doesn’t look handicapped out of things by any means under his penalty.

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