With last year's winner Hunters of Brora out of the way, King of Tunes and Right Wing are predictably among the leading fancies for the Worthington Lincoln at Doncaster on March 27th, for which the weights were published yesterday.
The pair, respectively second and third to James Bethell's mare - who is not among the 78 entries - last spring, share 16 to 1 favouritism with Sir Michael Stoute's Lonsome Dude, the James Eustace-trained Refuse To Lose and Mick Ryan's Silk St John.
Ladbrokes go 20s the field, bringing in King of Tunes as well as Right Wing, Refuse To Lose, Raheen, Captain Scott, Nomore Mr Niceguy and the Dermot Weld-trained Tarry Flynn, bidding to become the first Irish winner of the race since Weld's Saving Mercy in 1984.
John Dunlop, trainer of Right Wing, is currently on holiday but his racing secretary Marcus Hosgood described the five-year-old as more a possible than definite runner in the £50,000 added mile race.
Refuse To Lose, all-the-way winner of the Royal Hunt Cup at Royal Ascot last June, is also far from certain to take his chance, as Eustace looks to the sand of Dubai, or Lingfield, in March.
