An impressive performance in Saturday’s Stella Artois (1600m) at Pukekohe capped a breakthrough autumn for Billy Lincoln (NZ) (Belardo), who has strung together three successive victories over the last five weeks.
Billy Lincoln made a relatively quiet start to his career, finishing outside the placings in all of his first three starts between November and January. The three-year-old Belardo gelding hinted at better things with a second placing at Taupo on February 14, chasing home the subsequent stakes performer Irish Legacy, and he has not looked back since then.
The Stephen Marsh-trained Billy Lincoln cleared maiden ranks by two lengths at Hastings on February 28, then defeated a talented field on Oaks Day at Trentham on March 16.
Saturday’s opening race at Pukekohe presented another new challenge with a small field of highly capable three-year-olds, including the stakes-performed Solidify, but Billy Lincoln was up to the task.
Billy Lincoln led for the first 400m of the race, but apprentice jockey Ngakau Hailey was unfazed when Cintivee and King Of The North slid past him approaching the turn out of the back straight. Billy Lincoln then settled in third place until Hailey spotted a narrow opening on the inside of Cintivee in the straight.
Hailey drove Billy Lincoln through that tight gap, striding past Cintivee and taking command. Kealoha came at him with a strong late run, but Billy Lincoln held her out by a long head.
Billy Lincoln’s seven-start career has now produced three wins, a second and $90,150 in stakes.
“He’s come a long way in a short time this autumn,” Marsh said. “He’s done a really good job and is a pretty promising sort of three-year-old. Putting together three wins on the bounce is no mean feat.
“He seemed to relax nicely stepping up to 1600m today. He had to come through quite a tight gap in the straight, so it was good to see him negotiate that and run so strongly to the line.
“We probably won’t do a great deal more with him in this preparation. He’s had a fair few runs now, and he needs reasonably good ground. He could have one more if he comes through this one well and the tracks stay dry, but otherwise he can go out to the paddock, and we’ll save him for his four-year-old season.”
Billy Lincoln is part-owned by his breeders Lincoln Farms Bloodstock, who remarkably took out the opening race at both New Zealand venues on Saturday. Another of their emerging three-year-olds, Platinum Attack, extended his own winning sequence to four in Trentham’s The Oaks Stud Premier (1200m).
