Lincoln Hills … works like an open class handicapper. PHOTO: Royden Williams.
Lisa on Lincoln Hills: ‘This horse can really gallop’
By Barry Lichter • 3 April 2019
The most fascinating race of the week for trainer Lisa Latta will be Lincoln Hills’ tilt at strong rating 82 company at Awapuni on Friday.
An all-the-way last-start winner in rating 65 company on the course, Lincoln Hills steps up significantly in class in the sixth race.
And while he is a two-race winner taking on rivals who have won up to eight races, Latta doesn’t think he’ll be disgraced.
“This horse can really gallop, he works like an open class handicapper.
“And he gets a bit of a weight allowance on Friday.’’
Lincoln Hills drops 4kg on the 58kg he carried on March 1 while the majority of his rivals are carrying 58.5kg or more.
“He beat some pretty nice ones last week and his work has been very good since.”
On Tuesday morning Lincoln Hills was teamed with well performed stablemate Father Lenihan, clocking 52.3 for 800 metres and 39.7 for the last 600.
“I’m really interested to see how he goes. If he could run in the first four I’d be happy. Eventually I think he’ll be up to these horses.’’
Latta has given Lincoln Hills a month in between runs as he’s been quite soft until now, and also finickity about what track conditions he likes.
The Awapuni track was rated a dead 5 today, which would suit him perfectly.
Top jockey Chris Johnson again takes the ride on the All Too Hard four-year-old who is nicely spotted in gate six.
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Lisa’s comments
Friday at Awapuni
Race 8: Lincoln Towers
4.53pm
“He needs two more scratchings to make the field and, because it’s the first day back racing at Awapuni and they’re running only 12 horses, that looks doubtful. I decided to run him over 1400 metres as I think leaving him at 1200 wouldn’t be the right thing to do. He has continued to work well and had a really nice gallop on the course proper this week.”
Stephen’s comments
Saturday at Te Rapa
Race 7: Billy Lincoln
3.37pm
“He’s bounced out of his trial (third on the Cambridge synthetic) very well and it’s time to kick him off. I wouldn’t expect him to win at 1200 metres but it will bring him on nicely. Then we’ll step him up to a more suitable 1400 and second-up he can be very competitive. Rihaan Goyaram rides and claims 3kg down to 53.5kg.”