Lincoln Fury … has the outside draw but gets the magic man Chris Johnson. PHOTO: Royden Williams.
He’s drawn the car park but CJ will get the best out of Lincoln Fury at Wanganui
By Barry Lichter • 14 February 2019
Trainer Lisa Latta will instruct top jockey Chris Johnson to be positive on Lincoln Fury despite his wide barrier draw at Wanganui on Friday.
The magic man takes over the reins from Madan Singh in the eighth race with Latta determined not to see a repeat of his last start run at Otaki.
“We should have gone more forward at Otaki,’’ says Latta. “Madan took hold and got stuck out wide.’’
Lincoln Fury, who was tightened at the start and also had to be restrained off heels 1000 metres out, did well for fifth, only 2.4 lengths from winner Somewhere Man.
Though drawn the outside of the 14 horse field on Friday, Lincoln Fury has the gate speed to get into the play early.
“Chris will go forward and we’ll see where he ends up.’’
Two starts back, at Wanganui, Lincoln Fury ran a strong second over 1340 metres, after being handy all the way.
“He’s looking for more ground and, while the tracks are getting hard, they put water on at Wanganui so it should be OK for him.
“I don’t want to be taking him to places like Wairoa with the tracks so hard at the moment.’’
Latta says Friday’s opposition is well within Lincoln Fury’s scope so she has decided to start, rather than wait another week for the Otaki meeting.
“He’s got ability. I thought he would have won a race by now but he hasn’t had all favours.’’
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Lisa’s comments
Friday at Waverley
Race 5: Lincoln Towers
2.58pm
Update: Scratched
“I am really happy with him at the moment, his work has been superb. We ended up injecting his knees and he worked great on the course proper on Tuesday morning. He should be very competitive in a field like this but my biggest concern is how much rain is in the forecast. I would be reluctant to start him if the track got to be really wet as we know he has never gone very well on heavy tracks.”