Mike Vince recalls the history of the Lincoln Handicap, Saturday's turf season curtain raiser at Doncaster, a race so famous a period of winners are on a board game.
The Unibet Lincoln, for years known as the first leg of the Spring Double, has long been the race that has been associated with the passing of the seasons.
But things have changed - for years it was the final day feature of a mixed meeting on Town Moor (whatever did happen to the Clock Corner Handicap Chase?), when the three days would start with an Apprentice race, giving a young rider the chance to lead the jockeys' title race for half an hour) and there were the journeys to Redcar and Newcastle, who both had straight miles, while Doncaster was redeveloped - the race was also run on the round course!
But however much you change the trimmings, the main course has remained the same - a fiercely competitive one-mile Handicap with a maximum field of 22 so assured the Spring Mile, the Consolation Race has been brought in.
Inevitably the ground can be testing, as it was in 2016 when, because of Easter, the Lincoln wasn’t the first meeting of the season - taking place a week after at the start of April.
It’s a race remembered as it produced the first win for ‘The Boys in Blue’ of Godolphin, but not with their most fancied runner.
It was the commentators nightmare Udododontu, trained by Saeed Bin Suroor and ridden by James Doyle who was sent off as favourite, second in the previous year's Britannia at Royal Ascot, he had finished first and second in two races in Meydan earlier in the year.
But his effort was short lived and he was eased to beat not much more than the Ambulance home. Beach Bar made the early running and about two furlongs out Farlow led for a while, but William Buick on Charlie Appleby’s Secret Brief was going well.
He edged left on making his challenge but, at an SP of 12-1 saw off Bravo Zolo by a neck with Battle of Marathon a further half a length back in third..
It wasn’t just the Lincoln itself that is remembered for that day. The Brocklesby, traditional curtain raiser for the two year olds was won by Mark Johnston’s The Last Lion, who went on later in the year to win the Group 1 Middle Park, beating Blue Point - and the Doncaster Mile went to Belardo, who just weeks later also claimed Group 1 success, in the Lockinge at Newbury.
So it’s a card to watch beyond the big handicap.
And it is also a race that has a unique trivia about it. Did you know that the Lincoln Handicap winners from 1926-1938 are the horse names on that popular Family Board Game Totopoly?
