What a difference a week makes.
Levitate got home in a blanket finish to the William Hill Lincoln at Doncaster yesterday, a race in which he would not have made the cut had it been run as scheduled.
The John Quinn-trained five-year-old would have had to settle for the Spring Mile consolation had the first big race of the Flat season not been put back seven days because of snow.
Last year's winner Brae Hill seemed likely to become only the third horse to triumph in two successive years but Richard Fahey's charge was caught in the shadow of the post and finished third, beaten by a short head and a nose.
Levitate (20-1), having his first start since switching from Alan McCabe's stable, came with a late lunge under Darren Egan.
Brian Ellison's Global Village flew home under Martin Lane and pipped Brae Hill on the line for second.
Brae Hill's stablemate Justonefortheroad was fourth to make it a clean sweep for Malton yards.
"I was so happy he got into the race this week. He'd been working pleasingly and we thought he'd go in the ground," Quinn said. "He had to go up another notch but Pivotals tend to improve with age. We decided to claim off him with Darren and it was the right thing to do. The 3lb won us the race. We won it with Blythe Knight (in 2006 at Newcastle), so to win another Lincoln is phenomenal."
Jack Dexter (15-8 favourite) successfully stepped up to Listed company in the William Hill – New iPad App Cammidge Trophy. Last year's Ayr Bronze Cup winner, the Jim Goldie-trained four-year-old saw off the last two Gold Cup winners, Captain Ramius and Our Jonathan.
They finished second and third as Jack Dexter sprinted clear in the closing stages under Graham Lee to win by half a length and a length, going one better than his sire Orientor, who twice finished second in this race.
At Musselburgh, Newstead Abbey, ridden by Graham Gibbons, took the honours in the big race, the Totepool.com Royal Mile.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article