Smiles all round as Debbie scores with her cheapie namesake and banks 2yo bonus

She paid a big price as the rank outsider on Friday night but she came with about as small a price tag as you can get.

And the $19.60 Auckland winner couldn’t have had a more appropriate name than Debbie Lincoln, after Debbie Green who bought the filly for just $3500 at New Zealand Bloodstock’s 2022 weanling sale.

Debbie Green … bought the filly for $3500.Green, whose husband Ray trains the filly, bought five weanlings for $19,500 at the sale, taking Lincoln Farms’ owners John and Lynne Street in as partners.

But she had no idea that when John Street struggled to come up with a name for the Lather Up filly, he settled on Debbie Lincoln, as a mark of respect for her uncanny ability to select bargain bin winners, like champion Copy That and million dollar winner Hard Copy.

“I knew nothing about it,” Green said after Debbie Lincoln powered past hot favourite Princess Gracy to win at just her fifth start.

“I bought three Lather Up fillies at that sale (the other pair costing $4000 each). Price is my controlling factor and we try to buy ones by new stallions because they’re cheaper.”

“She was a nice type and that was more important than her pedigree.”

John Street … it makes sense to buy cheap weanlings and raise them at Lincoln Farms.Street even took a half share in a $2000 Speeding Spur colt (Lincoln’s Jade) with Green. Despite having won the 2008 Interdominion Grand Final with Galleons Sunset, he had sworn off racing any more trotters because of the time and frustrations involved.

In his acceptance speech, Street outlined how in latter years he had been swayed into buying cheap, young horses and raising them at Lincoln Farms, instead of shooting for the expensive top lots at the yearling sales.

At last year’s weanling sale, Lincoln Farms secured six weanlings for $101,000.

“We have 19 rising two-year-olds coming through in the next few months and Zac Butcher tells me we’ve got a few champions there so hopefully he’s right.”

Of the three Lather Up fillies, Ray Green said another, Lincoln’s Faith was in training, while the third, Intimidator, had been lost with a broken leg.

“But we have a Lather Up colt (Johnny Lincoln) who goes really nicely too.”

Debbie Lincoln sweeps past Princess Gracy near the finish.Green said Debbie Lincoln, who is the third winner for Woodlands Stud’s new sire, was a good, little pacer with some nice speed but was still quite green.

That partly explained why the filly had beaten only one home in her previous start, driver Maurice McKendry saying she had been very green in her run off the gate.

“But she seems to be putting it together,” McKendry said.

“She travelled really well tonight and I don’t think it mattered that the favourite gave her the one-one when she came round, she was sitting happily parked out before that.”

Debbie Lincoln, who swept past Princess Gracy at the 100, scored by three-quarters of a length, clocking a mile rate of 1:56.2 for the mobile 1700 metres.

She banked the $9350 winner’s purse plus a $12,000 Entain two-year-old bonus, $8000 going to Green and the Streets and $4000 to her breeder, Woodlands Stud.