Trainer travels 765-mile round trip to Lingfield with one horse

It’s that time of year when racing fans are grateful for synthetic surfaces. Lingfield and Chelmsford fit that bill on Saturday to go with Kempton which will be the feature on ITV Racing in the afternoon. The first named has one of the most interesting runners on the day.

Long distance travellers are always an interesting angle but not many make a round trip as long as 765 miles. That is especially the case when it happens with just a single runner for a Class 6 contest with less than £3,000 to the winner of the race.

We will have free horse racing tips for all the surviving cards on Saturday but let’s cut the suspense and explain about the long distance traveller in a little more detail, who at time of writing is a 12/1 chance.

11.30 Lingfield – Heed Your Hunch At Betway Handicap

He’s had a jump license since 1988 and a flat once since 2000, yet Alistair Whillans has had just one runner at Lingfield in all that time. CORKED in the opening race on Saturday is just the second to make the 765-mile round trip down from the Scottish Borders to the Surrey track.

She is an incredibly consistent type, finishing in the first four in fourteen of her last seventeen starts. She is not the most regular winner but has three successes in that time. Her current mark is two pounds above her highest winning mark but she has placed from higher so, there should still be some wiggle room in her current handicap rating.

It’s interesting to note that although Whillans has not sent runners to Lingfield, he has sent this mare to Chelmsford on a number of occasions. Her form on the Polytrack there reads 212382 so a long trip in a horsebox clearly isn’t an issue for her, nor the surface and it further shows just how consistent a mare she is. At 12/1 for a horse with her record, she looks to hold very solid each way claims.