The Spring mile is a decent Race and seen as a "mini Lincoln". I have had to go back to 2015 and a few years before that to find an Opening Meeting at Donny that was not on soft or heavy, and the draw bias if any will be a conundrum for us all to resolve. The underlying trend is for horses to run up the middle of the track, far side (lower) have an advantage purely on statistical data, but statistical data and trends are far more likely to lead you down a blind alley than form analysis, so we will bear the stats and trends in mind but delve deeper in to actual form.

 

I narrowed this field of 16 down to a short list of 6, based on early season formlines for each horse, Going and Draw and of those 6 I don't think that CALVADOS SPIRIT and DAWALEEB who both run well fresh are quite good enough to take a Class 2 of this depth. I would definitely track both on next run whatever happens here especially in Class 3 or 4 races. RAMPANT LION is fit from the AW could be anything on turf but the fact they have shied off the grass so often just puts me off.

 

AL JELLABY came closest to the final picks as runs prominently and if fit, ideal ground for it, but drawn 16 makes it a target, I can see it leading an arrow formation and just getting picked off at the end - an ideal Tricast horse but I will just leave it out of my tip calculations today. The pair I most like are PETRUS who looks to have been laid out for this race and gets ideal conditions and a perfect draw in stall 3 for a shrewd Trainer. The other one is GULF OF POETS who won on reappearance in 2017 and 2018 and another very well drawn in the low/middle range (stall 7) and whilst we seem to have been saying this is Mick Easterby's last season for the last decade, to hear him being the first Flat winning Trainer of 2019 on TV would be fantastic for us, probably the Directors worst nightmare "bleep bleep bleep"....