Lingfield 2.20
Thunderstruck 14/1
Quite like the look of this C+D winning 7 year old who makes his debut for new trainer Scott Dixon who has made an excellent start to his training career with 3 wins from his first 10 runners which began last month. Although he's on a long losing streak of 20 and is winless since 2010, he has dropped to a quite an attractive mark and is now only 1lb above his last winning mark and looks to be quite nicely handicapped on his old form. Thunderstuck normally reserves his best racing for this time of year with all of his wins and places taking place between September and March and 2 of his 5 wins occurring in January. He's a proven winner in this grade (Class 4) and has indeed put in some excellent efforts in Class 2 and 3 events with a head defeat in the former and a 2L defeat in the latter coming off a 5lb higher mark so he looks very well handicapped to me.
Dixon makes his first visit to Lingfield and it represents a near 7 hour round trip for his only runner of the day so I think it looks like he is making the journey with a horse that he expects to run a big race. Ian Mongan, who is having his first ride for the rookie trainer, has had 4 rides on Thunderstruck before which makes the jockey booking even more telling. Although the draw in stall 12 is a bit of a negative for this horse who likes to front run or race prominently, he overcame a similarly bad stall to win at Kempton and he usually breaks fast so I don't think its an insurmountable task. He's going to have to bounce back from a few pretty bad runs but Dixon has found an immediate recapture of form with some of his other debut runners and he looks nicely handicapped to win this. 14/1 looks a very nice price to me, although I've missed 20s, and if the unexposed runners in this field aren't miles ahead of the handicapper I fancy Thunderstruck to go very close if getting a nice early position.
Thunderstruck 14/1
Quite like the look of this C+D winning 7 year old who makes his debut for new trainer Scott Dixon who has made an excellent start to his training career with 3 wins from his first 10 runners which began last month. Although he's on a long losing streak of 20 and is winless since 2010, he has dropped to a quite an attractive mark and is now only 1lb above his last winning mark and looks to be quite nicely handicapped on his old form. Thunderstuck normally reserves his best racing for this time of year with all of his wins and places taking place between September and March and 2 of his 5 wins occurring in January. He's a proven winner in this grade (Class 4) and has indeed put in some excellent efforts in Class 2 and 3 events with a head defeat in the former and a 2L defeat in the latter coming off a 5lb higher mark so he looks very well handicapped to me.
Dixon makes his first visit to Lingfield and it represents a near 7 hour round trip for his only runner of the day so I think it looks like he is making the journey with a horse that he expects to run a big race. Ian Mongan, who is having his first ride for the rookie trainer, has had 4 rides on Thunderstruck before which makes the jockey booking even more telling. Although the draw in stall 12 is a bit of a negative for this horse who likes to front run or race prominently, he overcame a similarly bad stall to win at Kempton and he usually breaks fast so I don't think its an insurmountable task. He's going to have to bounce back from a few pretty bad runs but Dixon has found an immediate recapture of form with some of his other debut runners and he looks nicely handicapped to win this. 14/1 looks a very nice price to me, although I've missed 20s, and if the unexposed runners in this field aren't miles ahead of the handicapper I fancy Thunderstruck to go very close if getting a nice early position.
