$101 monster upset! - Lincoln Wave makes the most of lucky break and fills plenty of pockets

Lincoln Wave filled a few pockets and dented a few reputations with his monster upset win in Friday night’s $50,000 Sires’ Stakes Semi-Final at Cambridge.

Originally quoted at $101 and starting the rank outsider at $91 with the bookies and $88.60 on the tote, Lincoln Wave had his nose in front after a stirring home stretch battle with Cyclone Rebel to land some tidy sums for his owners and supporters.

BOILOVER: Lincoln Farms’ Badlands Bute wins the 2004 Great Northern Derby at $43 in the hands of Tony Herlihy.Not since Badlands Bute paid $43 in winning the 2004 Great Northern Derby and Beaudiene Boaz upset at $38 in the 2014 Two-Year-Old Harness Jewels at Cambridge has a Lincoln Farm-trained runner been at such outsized odds.

“I know he drew badly but he shouldn’t have been at $101,” said Ray Green who trains the up-and-coming three-year-old with Nathan Delany.

“I didn’t back him but I know plenty who did.”

Among the delighted punters were Lincoln Farms’ racing manager Ian Middleton and two of his partners in the horse, Phil Kelly and David Turner, who share in the ownership with John and Lynne Street and Paul Wyatt.

“I always back our horses for a bit of fun,” said Middleton whose $20 each-way wagers on his horses Lincoln Wave and Leo Lincoln, a $13 winner of the Country Cup one race earlier, made for one of his most exciting nights in racing.

But shouting even louder for Lincoln Wave, as 3000 club member drivers Maurice McKendry and Tony Herlihy duelled it out, was one of Lincoln Farms’ loyal ownership groups, the eight-strong Four Legs syndicate whose table “collected about $10,000.”

What Ray Green said about Lincoln Wave’s chances.Appropriately, Green’s wife Debbie also fattened her wallet by $1800 as it was she who first detected the filling in a leg which could have ruined Lincoln Wave’s career before it had even started.

After winning a workout on January, 2025, and looking the best of Lincoln Farms’ two-year-olds he was shaping up as a hot chance to take the Young Guns series.

But scans and X-rays detected a roughened appearance of the two sesamoid bones that sit at the back of the fetlock joint, the warning signs of sesamoiditis.

“He was never lame but it was bad enough that if we’d pressed on, we could have caused a major problem,” Green said. “We did the right thing by him and turned him out for a long spell.”

It was more than 12 months later when Lincoln Wave finally debuted, missing all the lucrative two-year-old features.

Serious chance

And that’s one of the reasons why Green was so pleased that the colt’s owners won a $25,000 purse on Friday night and that Lincoln Wave must now be considered a “serious” chance for the $200,000 Sires’ Stakes Final at Addington on May 22.

“He’s a very good horse and I’m not so afraid of Jumal any more (after he finished a distant third behind Got The Chocolates at Addington on Friday night).

“You saw the big gap (five and a half lengths) between Lincoln Wave and Cyclone Rebel and the rest and he’s improving all the time.”

When Green predicted Lincoln Wave would be right in the fray on Friday night if he happened to get a good run, he could never have envisaged what actually played out.

Trailer Nymbal is galloping back through the field, leaving a big gap for Lincoln Wave parked outside him to take up.Sent forward off the gate by McKendry, Lincoln Wave looked like he was going to have to sit parked outside the leader Cyclone Rebel - until one of racing’s great unknowns intervened. Going into the first turn, Nymbal galloped, discombobulating the field behind him and allowing McKendry to steer straight into the trail.

“That’s what makes horse racing what it is. Always expect the unexpected,” Green said.

And after the favourite Allamericanplayer was left stranded three wide with no cover for the last 1100 metres, and punctured a tyre, a monumental upset looked on.

Lincoln Wave, in his no fuss, get-the-job-done style, dashed up the passing lane to score, giving McKendry three wins from three drives on the colt.

A distant third came Special Occasion who nosed out Lincoln Farms’ second runner Sammy Lincoln, who cost himself the placing by hanging out and having to be straightened 100 metres from the post.

Lincoln Wave clocked 1:59.7 for the 1700 metres, home in 56.5 and 27.9, and improving on his last-start mile rate of 1:54, with a 1:53.3.

It was the Downbytheseaside colt’s fourth win from seven starts and took his bankroll to $57,162.

Leo Lincoln races past Kings Watch. PHOTO: Megan Liefting/Race Images.Leo’s impressive stakes tally

It could be argued that five-year-old Leo Lincoln’s stakes tally of $133,051 is even more impressive.

“He excels when the stakes are high,” Green said. “He’s won four good money races now.”

Friday night’s Country Cup was worth $24,125 and earlier he bagged two nice races at Manawatu worth $19,300 and $23,687, as well as a $34,387 Metro Final at Auckland.

When Todd Mitchell set a strong pace on Kings Watch and Peter Ferguson slotted Leo Lincoln straight into the trail, everything augured well as the well-backed backmarkers struggled to get into play.

“They were all off the bridle a long way out,” said Green after Leo Lincoln pounced in the stretch to claim the leader and clock 3:20.6 for the 2700 metres, a mile rate of 1:59.5.

It was Leo Lincoln’s eighth win from 58 starts and elevated his rating to R56.

“He’ll be hard to place now but we’ve got the money.

“He’s been a good horse for us but I did offer him to a guy two weeks ago for $20,000 and he never got back to me.”

Green races Leo Lincoln with the Streets, Middleton, Kelly and Glenn and Ann Cotterill.

* Green had been looking forward to seeing Lincoln Wave’s brother Omaha Lincoln debut in the opening race but he was late scratched when it became obvious all was not well in his preliminary.

Moments earlier the two-year-old got a leg over his hopples in the cross-ties, panicked and ended up upside down.

“It looks like he might have pulled a muscle high up somewhere,” Green said.