Owner John Blackburn is hoping patience pays off with his Sky Bet Sunday Series bonus hunter Spring Is Sprung.
The six-year-old sprinter is the only horse with two victories to his name so far, following wins at Newmarket in May and Chelmsford in June.
Spring Is Sprung’s intended first crack at landing the £100,000 bonus - paid to connections of the first horse to win three times - was scuppered by heavy rain shortly before the last fixture at Hamilton.
Blackburn and trainer Paul Midgley reluctantly pulled him out when ground conditions in Scotland had gone against him - and the duo have spent the last eight weeks sitting on their hands waiting for the Series to resume at Haydock on Sunday.
Yorkshireman Blackburn, 58, said: “We took a chance going up to Hamilton as we knew the weather forecast was a bit iffy. Unfortunately it went against us, but there was really no point running because Spring Is Sprung wants it rattling fast.
“We had a decision to make after that because the summer is the time of year when he’s most likely to get his ideal ground.
“There have been plenty of races he could have run in since then, including some pretty valuable ones.
“But we made a decision after Hamilton to sit tight and wait for Haydock, rather than risk his mark going up for winning or running well in another race before then, and we’ve stuck to it.”
That fate befell connections of Evaluation in 2022. The Keith Dalgleish-trained stayer, who’d already won at York and Musselburgh, went up another 1lb for finishing fourth in the Northumberland Vase then agonisingly missed out on the bonus by a nose in the Series finale at Sandown.
Letsbefrank went down by a neck in the Haydock leg 12 months ago before scrambling home by a short-head in the last-chance saloon at Pontefract to scoop the six-figure payout for Glasgow owner Stuart Morrison and his daughter Carol.
Spring Is Sprung will get a second bite of the cherry, should he need it, at York on September 8.
But Blackburn, who won the 2014 Abbaye with Move In Time and last year’s Windsor Castle with Ain’t Nobody, is understandably keen to seal the deal before then.
He added: “York is York. The racing is always ultra-competitive there.
“So if we’re going to win the bonus, Haydock on Sunday looks like our best chance of doing it.
“It’s not something we mapped out as a target at the start of the year.
“Midge was keen to target the Sunday Series because there’s good prize-money for all of the races. The bonus is just that. It’s only manifested itself as an aim now because he’s the only horse to have won twice so far.
“Spring Is Sprung will do his final piece of work on Friday.
“He’s not a horse you can just keep cantering away, he needs some proper work to keep him at peak fitness. Paul knows him very well now. He’ll have him spot on for Sunday.”
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