Lincoln Handicap: Jamie Lynch's runner guide to Doncaster season opener as Flat racing returns on Town Moor

The Flat season is back and kicks off with the typically competitive William Hill Lincoln Handicap on Doncaster's Town Moor. Sky Sports Racing's senior form analyst has taken a deep dive through this year's field and makes his selection for the big race.

The Race

Fundamentally it's a high-value mile handicap, but figuratively it's so much more than that, the race heightened by history and amplified by appointment as the first page turned of a new season, the Lincoln as much a symbol as a horserace, hence its pulling power year on year.

For the first of William Haggas' wins, in 1992, High Low did it off a mark of 75, which wouldn't get you into the Spring Mile nowadays, and the coating of class in the modern-day Lincoln is highlighted by half a dozen horses rated 100+ this renewal.

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The Trends

The trends tend to be temporary or transitional, meaning they're not really trends at all. It's less trends and more waves, the last four winners all aged five or older and high mileage but high compatibility with big fields on a straight mile, in contrast to the prior five on the roll of honour who were all lightly-raced four-year-olds, four of them based at Newmarket.

The last two winners were rated in the low 90s, but eight of the nine before that had a three-figure mark, though only two in the last 15 years were the proverbial Group horse in a handicap, namely Penitent and Addeybb.

Two of the last four winners had contested the Balmoral on Champions Day at the end of their previous season, but as many as seven fulfil that criteria this time, spearheaded by SHOUT who did the best of them that day in fourth, though TRIBAL CHIEF caught the eye in seventh after a luckless run.

The Trainers

The aforementioned Shout and Tribal Chief are from stables who have targeted the Lincoln recently, the Crisfords having two near-misses with Saleymm and Awaal, the latter finishing second to David Menuisier's Migration.

Seven other Lincoln-winning yards have representatives in this edition, but there's one that stands above all, William Haggas the top trainer in the race's long history with five wins, and ETERNAL FORCE has all the ingredients to make it six.

A low-mileage four-year-old from that stable whose improving steps became leaps as last season went on, Eternal Force is a profiler's dream, but naturally there's a premium on his price, and he's not the only horse of that advantageous age.

The Four-Year-Olds

It would take something unusual to stop the brightly-lit Eternal Force from going off favourite, but LA BOTTE is indeed something unusual.

There's catching the eye and then there's what he did under Spencer in the Trial at Wolverhampton, with the best run-out speed by far on the day, and he also topped the same metric in the 30-runner Britannia at Royal Ascot where he beat all bar one, looking every inch a pattern performer of the future. La Botte is an anagram of 'a lot bet', which there will be on him, the stand-out contender.

Charlie Appleby won the Lincoln with four-year-olds in 2016 (Secret Brief) and 2019 (Auxerre), and there are elements of both in ANNO DOMINI, who's had only a handful of races and coming from a stint in Dubai where neither race got to the bottom of him. He's carrying just 9-1 with Toby Moore's claim, and that's a low weight for one who tackled the Group 1 Futurity (at a single-figure price) in his third race.

ROGUE DIPLOMAT ended last year on a roll, with four handicap wins on the bounce (including two at Doncaster), all by less than a length, but they were all at 7f, and the worry is that going this far first time out may reignite his free-going fire.

The Regulars

Irish raider ORANDI was third last year, though came into that with the Irish Lincolnshire already in the bag, and he failed to fire in the same race a fortnight ago when 11-2 and ridden by Ryan Moore. Just behind Orandi 12 months ago, in fifth, was GALERON, who's 7lbs lower in the weights now despite ending 2025 on a higher note when runner-up back at Doncaster, where he has run very well on all four visits. For a horse who was once fourth in a Guineas, he's potentially very well handicapped, even more so with Jack Callan's claim.

On this day for the last two years, ALPHA CRUCIS has finished fourth then eighth in the Lincoln, while THUNDER ROAR has finished second in two Spring Miles, and it's odd to see him so high up the Lincoln weights at the age of seven.

The 'regulars' doesn't just pertain to Doncaster, as there are other straight-track specialists, such as GREEK ORDER who was fourth in the Royal Hunt Cup, one place ahead of URBAN LION, who maintained high standards until the very end of the season when he went off 9-1 fifth-favourite for the Cambridgeshire but found himself in the wrong group. He won first time out last season. GREAT ACCLAIM has loads of winning form on straight courses but usually takes a few runs to get up to speed, plus he's reappearing without the blinkers that took him to a new level last summer.

The Wildcards

In real terms he's got top weight but his handicap mark was higher still when BOTANICAL was second in the 2024 John Smith's Cup, a touch of class that none of his rivals can match, and he'll make them all go if the switch to Karl Burke has revived him, more likely than not given the trainer's talent. And don't forget that Burke has won the last two Cambridgshires, both carrying top weight and in these colours.

He's a law unto himself but if VALVANO is ever to reveal his true identity then it will be here, first time out with his adrenaline up, blinkered and tongue tied for the first time. He flatters to deceive and hasn't won since his two-year-old debut, but he's got a race like this in him if the mood takes him, and the more rain the better.

Jamie Lynch's Verdict

Even though they haven't registered a win since 2021, the four-year-olds are invariably the first port of call for a Lincoln, and La Botte could be one of the really good ones to come here like Penitent and Addeybb who likewise were having just their sixth start at Doncaster.

But there's no meat in his price, and each-way swing on URBAN LION is my preferred play. He ran really well time and again in races of this nature last year and being drawn next to Botanical could be a sweet spot in a race without any other identifiable formation focal point.