Juliette's Weekly Frolic
This coming Saturday horserace sponsorship celebrates its 100th birthday. In 1873 thanks to the generosity of the bookmaking fraternity, Lincoln's executive were able to offer a £1,000 prize for their famous handicap, so it was appropriate that Ladbrokes should renew the custom when the race moved to Doncaster eight years ago. Now under the umbrella of the Irish Hospitals Sweeps, this year's renewal has a field which has been described as the most dismal bunch yet to turn out for an £8,000 race. However, the acknowledged attraction has long been a competitive market rather than a quality field and you have to go as far back as 1855 when Saucebox picked it up en route to the St. Leger to find an actual classic winner.
As to the open quality of the field a casual browse round the racing columns will reveal enough fit and fancied possibilities to bring on a fever of confusion that an evening with last year's form book is unlikely to dispel. Past exploits, especially among the four-year-olds, weave an even more tangled web than usual which, added to the vagaries of the virus, suggest there might be easier ways of solving the problem.
The elderly naval gentleman who first infected me with the gambling bug never owned a form book, but kept instead a desk crammed full of meticulously recorded statistics. A quick flip through the index and you had at your fingertips the appropriate age of the animal, the weight he should carry and the price at which he must start. Not to mention his sex, his colour and those of his jockey. Such a calculated recipe for success might not find favour with form purists, but it had its moments in the past, and with all else failing, might do so once more this Saturday.
Since 1949 when three-yearolds were barred, those aged four and five have dominated the Lincoln. The latter had their fling in the 'fifties, while the former have turned up five times since the move to Doncaster, with an average weight of 8.4 and a reasonably healthy price. Unhelpfully, no candidate precisely fits the bill this time but four are near enough the mark for my purposes — aged five and with the right weight: Do Justice and Smart Sam; aged four and weighing in at 8.1 and 8.2 respectively: Anak Malaysia and Desperate Dee. The first-named has been hurdling with distinction and might be chopped for speed, while the last in the list confined himself to sprinting last season. Smart Sam carried 8.6 to victory in the wellcontested Epsom Handicap on his 1972 debut and as for ' Anak ' after two maiden wins in his first three attempts, he ran up a string of impressive seconds. Open Season ran Sallust to a length on Derby day and can make up for subsequent disappointments in Friday's French Gate Stakes.
Assets: £76.08 (Five to follow, assets: £16.52. Outlay: £2 ew Anak Malaysia, £1 ew Smart Sam and £2 to win Open Season.
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