Lincoln Lights Up Opening Weekend of 2025 Flat Season

Horse Racing Staring Stalls Empty

With the Cheltenham Festival in the books for another year and the Aintree Grand National meeting concluding on the 5th of April, the focus of most racing fans will soon switch to events on the flat.

However, we don’t need to wait for the major jumping events to conclude before the quality flat action speeds into view. As ever, the 2025 British flat season begins before the 2024/25 National Hunt campaign draws to a close.

Saturday, 29th of March is the date in the diary as the road to the Classics and major summer festivals begins once again.

The final midweek action in March sees a relatively low-key selection of all-weather and National Hunt cards. The pick of the bunch comes at Fontwell Park on Friday as the West Sussex track stages the final of the Fontwell Chase Series. There’s £40,000 up for grabs in that event, but, as tends to be the case at this time of year, the action only really begins to move through the gears at the weekend.

Cracking Card at Donny Opens the Flat Season in Style

Famed as the home of the final Classic contest of the season, in the shape of the historic St Leger, Doncaster is also the track at which the flat season begins.

As such, all eyes will turn to the South Yorkshire venue on Saturday afternoon for an excellent seven-race card. The two-year-olds set the ball rolling in the always informative Brocklesby Stakes, whilst the Spring Mile provides a consolation prize for those who miss the cut for the main handicap event.

Next up, Town Moor hits racegoers with a Listed class double in the Cammidge Trophy and Doncaster Mile. Held over a speedy six furlongs, the former event has been claimed by talents such as Montassib and Vadream in recent years, whilst the Doncaster Mile boasts the names of Charyn, Belardo, and, improbably, future Champion Hurdle hero Sublimity on the roll of honour.

The Cammidge Trophy and Doncaster Mile are the highest-class contests on the card, but the big betting heat arrives in race five. First run back in 1853 when Queen Victoria was on the throne, the Lincoln Handicap is amongst the most historic handicap contests on the British racing calendar.

Almost always attracting a maximum field of 22, the 2025 Lincoln Handicap is shaping up to be a cracker, with leading fancies from the yards of John and Thady Gosden, Ralph Beckett, Richard Hannon, Charles Hills, and Andrew Balding amongst the current list of entries. The Beckett-trained, Juddmonte-owned, Qirat is the choice of punters at present, but with the past three winners returning an SP of 18/1 or bigger, this can be a tricky contest to unravel.

Emerald Isle Adds Excitement

If recent evidence is any guide, those hoping that the Irish dominance may end in tandem with the jumps campaign are likely to be disappointed. Willie Mullins may take it easy for a few months, but Aidan O’Brien is ready, willing and able to step into the breach.

With that in mind, the higher-class contests from Ireland are always well worth watching, and the weekend of the 29th and 30th March provides four events at Listed level or above.

Saturday sees the 2025 edition of the Lester Piggott Gladness Stakes at the Curragh. Aidan O’Brien last claimed this seven-furlong event in 2021, but the past two editions have fallen to his sons Joseph and Donnacha – any runner with the name O’Brien in the trainer column may be worth a second look.

Attention turns to Leopardstown on Sunday afternoon for a triple salvo of Group 3 contests, headlined by the P.W. McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes. Restricted to three-year-old contenders, this 1m2f contest is recognised as a key early-season Derby trial. A look through the list of previous winners reveals the names of racing luminaries Galileo, High Chaparral, Yeats, Fame and Glory, and Harzand. Will a future Group 1 star emerge from the latest edition?