McCain takes Place in ‘Spring Double’ bid

Mar 21 2008 by Chris Wright, Liverpool Daily Post

DONALD McCAIN junior has the chance to bid for the ‘Spring Double’ as Temple Place just sneaked in at the bottom of the handicap for tomorrow’s William Hill Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster.

But leading ante-post fancies Zaahid and Lang Shining both missed the cut and the former trained by Barry Hills will now line-up in the consolation race, the William Hill Spring Mile.

Sir Michael Stoute’s Lang Shining will not run due to the likely soft conditions and now the market leader for the traditional curtain-raiser to the new Flat season is Michael Jarvis’s Prince Forever – a best-priced 15-2 with Coral.

Jumps trainer McCain has Cloudy Lane – a best-priced 13-2 favourite with Stan James and BetDirect for the John Smith’s Grand National, the second part of the bookmakers’ ‘Spring Double’.

The Cholmondeley-based handler rarely has runners on the Flat, although Temple Place did win a competitive handicap at Chester’s prestigious May meeting over 1m2½f last year at odds of 50-1.

He laughed off the possibility of pulling off the double earlier in the week, with the seven-year-old Sadler’s Wells gelding also an unfancied 50-1 shot with the sponsors to win tomorrow’s one-mile handicap.

Temple Place will be ridden by Robert Winston and has been drawn in stall eight.

Clerk of the course David Williams said yesterday: “The track is very even from one side to the other and at the Leger meeting jockeys weren’t frightened to come down the middle.

“The course itself hasn’t changed, but the new drainage system we installed means the ground is far more consistent.

“It is good to soft at the moment.

“We are forecast 12 millimetres today, with a further four tomorrow and another three on Saturday.

“I’d anticipate the ground will be good to soft on the straight but maybe soft, heavy in places on the round course.”