Dods sweet on Royal Ascot raid

SWEET Lightning could try to land a second big handicap over a mile following his convincing victory in the William Hill Lincoln at Doncaster on Saturday.

Connections are to consider the Royal Hunt Cup at Royal Ascot, although only one horse has completed the double – Mighty Fly in 1983.

Stepping up to Listed company is another possibility for the Michael Dods-trained six-year-old, which was ridden by Johnny Murtagh.

Dods said: “He’s come out of the race very well and he enjoyed it.

“I don’t think we’ll be rushing him now.

“We’ll see what the handicapper does, but the obvious step would be to go to a Listed race.

“The only problem with those is they don’t have a lot of runners and he does like a decent pace in the race.

“We could think about something like the Hunt Cup as well. We’ll sit down with Andrew (Tinkler, owner) and see what he thinks. The most important thing to him whichever race he is in is pace.

“As long as he has early pace and cover he will come home at the end of his races.”