BRITISH racing has been reaping the rewards of substantial investment in the All-Weather Championships, the third Finals’ Day of which will take place at Lingfield Park on Easter Friday, March 25th.

That course’s card last Saturday included two Fast Track Qualifiers – the winning of which guarantees a berth on the big day – in the shape of the Unibet Cleves Stakes and the coral.co.uk Winter Derby Trial.

Rivellino confirmed himself a smart sprinter by winning the former for the second year in a row, but it was the performance of Cold As Ice in third which particularly caught the eye.

The mare, a Grade 2 winner in her native South Africa, got into a poor position with the pace unexpectedly steady, but rattled home in 21.12s for the last two furlongs to claim third.

Timeform has only one horse (Tryster, 20.97s on Finals’ Day in 2015) ever having run faster at the business end of a race at Lingfield, at any distance, and Cold As Ice essentially faced a near-impossible task given her position at halfway.

Sectional number-crunching suggests she should be rated the winner on this occasion by the best part of a length.

HARD TO BEAT

Six furlongs should be no problem at all to Cold As Ice in a race run at a truer race, but it seems probable that she will return to seven furlongs for the Fillies & Mares Final, in which she should be extremely hard to beat.

The Winter Derby Trial went to the old favourite Grendisar (also repeating the previous year’s success), though this was another tactical affair, and the timefigure for the winner of 100 is well off the standard that may be required in the Final.

Dundalk runs three FTQs in the next week, plus one in early-March, and it will be interesting to see just how well supported they are.

Finals’ Day will have over £1m in prize money, which is not to be sniffed at.