3:00 – Lingfield – PLATERS AND STAMPERS SELLING STAKES (CLASS 6) (3yo+) Winner £1,704 Standard 6f
With the flat season starting on Saturday with the Lincoln Meeting at Doncaster I wanted to have one last look at the all weather horses that have been keeping the flat going over the winter. Between them the 5 runners in this Seller have made 130 starts on the all weather, mostly in the winter months.
The horse I take to win this very low level race today is Waterloo Dock. He has had just 38 starts on the all weather 34 of which have been at Lingfield – he could probably drive himself here in the horsebox if you asked him to. He has achieved 6 career wins all of which have been at Lingfield and five of them have been over today’s trip of 6 furlongs.
The 7 year old bay gelding’s form has been fairly consistent since the beginning of the year. He has run 7 times since 7 January, all at Lingfield and has won twice and been placed once, so he is holding his form well. All 6 of his wins have been achieved in low grade handicaps, three in Class 5 and three in Class 6 so he is more than capable of winning at Selling level.
He is ridden today by Danny Brock who has ridden him once before, winning on him in January. Danny is an apprentice jockey and as such claims 7lbs off Waterloo Dock meaning that he will run off bottom weight today.
His biggest rival on paper is Jake the Snake who has an Official rating of 84 which is 16lbs higher than Waterloo Dock who has the second highest rating in the race. However, in six starts over 6 furlongs Jake The Snake has only won once, which was back in April 2008 and he was 5th out of five runners in a 6 furlong Claiming race at Lingfield last week. Eight of his nine wins have come over 7 furlongs and 1 mile. He was claimed out of last week’s race by Richard Guest and the suspicion is that he is running over the ‘wrong’ trip today to reduce his handicap mark slightly in anticipation of a campaign over further on the turf flat as he was dropped 2lbs for his poor run last time.
So we should enjoy Waterloo Dock’s run today as we will probably only fleetingly see him (if at all) during the summer months. If he runs to his form he has a good chance of recording win number 7 at Lingfield today.
