COMMON consensus and recent history tells you that you have to side with a four-year-old in this afternoon’s SBK Lincoln. The last five winners were all four, and four-year-olds filled three of the first four places last year.

However, the market has cottoned on. The top five places in the market for today’s feature are filled by five of the seven four-year-olds in a race with 22 runners.

Rationale

You can see the rationale. The four-year-olds are the youngsters, last year’s three-year-olds, largely unexposed, most of them all set for their seasonal debuts, all promise. The potential to go well beyond the respective handicap ratings off which they will race today.

Mujtaba, for example, raced only three times last season, and he won on all three occasions, beating Empirestateofmind (more of whom anon) fairly easily in the last of those three at Redcar in October off a mark of 90. The handicapper gave him 8lb for that, he races off a mark of 98 today, but he has the potential to be a listed race or a group racehorse.

Listed

Modern News won his last three races in Britain last season, including a handicap over seven furlongs of today’s course, and he finished third in a listed race at Meydan last month behind Storm Damage, who is third favourite for the Group 2 Godolphin Mile back at Meydan today.

Saleymm ran in just four races last year, and he won two of them, his last two, both in November, both on all-weather.

Springboard

It wouldn’t be surprising if any one of the four-year-olds were to go and win impressively today, and use that as a springboard to bigger things later in the season, as Addeybb did in 2018.

However, that is all more than factored into the market, and it may be that Ametist’s chance has been under-rated.

Lightly raced

Ametist is five, but he is a lightly raced five-year-old. William Haggas’ horse has raced just eight times in his life, one fewer than each of the four-year-olds Notre Belle Bete, Teodolina and Darkness, and he has the potential to progress this season. He won his first three races last season, and was sent off as favourite for the Bunbury Cup at Newmarket in July.

He disappointed there, and he disappointed too in a big one-mile handicap at York’s Ebor meeting in August, but he bounced back to form on his final run of the season in the Cambridgeshire at Newmarket.

It looked like he might be coming with a winning run as they raced out of the Dip that day, just on the far side of the leading near-side group, but his run flattened out a little close home inside the ninth furlong, he just couldn’t get to Anmaat. He was run down by the winner Bedouin’s Story, but it was a really good note on which to end the season.

Impressive

He raced in cheekpieces for the first time that day, and they are back on today, which is not surprising. This is his first run since, but he was an impressive winner on his debut last season, we know that he can go well fresh.

It looks like he is the stable’s second string today, behind Mujtaba and in front of Irish Admiral, but it is still probable that his trainer has had the race in mind for him for a while, so you know that he will have him primed.

He should appreciate the drop back down to a mile too and, in a good each-way race, he looks over-priced at 14/1.

IT is an unusually small field for the consolation race, the Spring Mile, and Empirestateofmind is disputing favouritism for the race, but he deserves his place high in the market.

John Quinn’s horse made marked progression last season from mid-August to the end of October, winning three of his six races and finishing second in the other three. His progression was continual too, each of those six runs was better than his previous run.

He improved from a mark of 62 to today’s mark of 83, and he rounded off his season with that career-best performance in finishing second to the Lincoln favourite Mujtaba at Redcar.

Performance

He was well beaten by Mujtaba that day, it never really looked like he was going to catch him, but he still put up a really nice performance, making good progress from the rear to take second place, a half a length in front of Give It Some Teddy, who finished second in a big-field apprentices’ handicap at Doncaster on his final run of the season.

General Lee is a danger, but he may be better over nine or 10 furlongs than over a mile, while Mostawaa, who has been well supported in the last few days, will have to come forward considerably from his first run of 2022 at Kempton last month.

Empirestateofmind hasn’t run since November, but John Quinn has his horses in good form.

Before last night he had had a winner and three seconds from just six runners since last Tuesday, all at decent prices, and Empirestateofmind could further enhance that record today.

Recommended

Empirestateofmind, 1 pt win, 2.25 Doncaster, 100/30 (generally)

Ametist, 1 pt each-way, 3.35 Doncaster, 14/1 (generally)