NO sooner than Joey Sheridan had Chazzesmee pulled up after taking the Irish Lincoln was Fozzy Stack thinking about an audacious double attempt for the original Lincoln (3.35) at Doncaster today.

Audacious this certainly is because only one horse (Sweet Lightening) has won both races, but he had the bare luxury of two years and two different trainers between drinks. Chazzesmee has six days in his bid to become the first horse to do it in the same season.

It’s a slightly peculiar statistic because often both races have been run on the same day or weekend - with the Irish flat season adjusting its beginning pending Easter and other factors. You’d have thought that when there has been a week between races, it would have allowed for a double winner before but then again no Irish horse has won the English Lincoln since Dermot Weld’s Saving Mercy in 1984 - it’s a hard enough race to win fresh, never mind off a quick layoff.

Well in

The flip side to that is that Chazzesmee, under a 5lb penalty, is officially 3lb well in here, and if handling the quick turnaround, it could go the other way for him with the race fitness an advantage on the testing ground.

Stack summed it up best this week when he said: “It’s a shot to nothing really - he’ll either be thereabouts or they’ll be sending out a search party.”

The six-year-old gelding is an intriguing horse. He was bred by the legendary Barney Curley, bought by Tommy Stack, trained by his son, broke his pelvis as a three-year-old, and has now come back to win an Irish Lincoln and be on the verge of a unique double today.

He has 21 rivals to face and chief of those according to the betting are Liberty Lane and Awaal. Liberty Lane has a classic Lincoln profile of a lightly-raced horse who could be Group class taking on a handicap. That was the profile of Awaal last season when he finished second here and he comes back now off the exact same mark. Both go on soft ground and it’s easy to see why they are fancied.

The other Irish horse hoping to bridge the 40-year gap is Johnny Murtagh’s Blues Emperor who runs in the same colours as Grand National contender Vanillier. The five-year-old actually beat Chazzesmee in a mile handicap at the Curragh on Irish Derby weekend last year and looks versatile ground wise.

Murtagh was well represented in the Irish Lincoln on Monday so it may well be significant that this gelding has been chosen to travel to Doncaster.