IN front of a record crowd of 10,106 for Lingfield’s All-Weather Championships Finals day yesterday, hot favourite Grendisar landed the most valuable event of all, the £200,000 Coral Easter Classic over a mile and a quarter. Backed down to 4/6, this prolific course winner proved a length too good for Fire Fighting, who pipped French challenger Metropol for second as they flashed past the post.

Grendisar, third in this behind the very talented Tryster last year, has now won seven times around Lingfield and seven times for Adam Kirby. He is the leading prize-money earner this winter and will certainly be named Horse of the Season. Watersmeet led them early on, tracked by Metropol with Political Policy not far away. Kirby sat down to ride the favourite in earnest from the top of the straight and the response was not immediate, though he always looked the winner from that point. Wearing down the front pair, he readily went clear, the first three opening up a gap, although Man Of Harlech ran better this time in a hood and finished fourth.

“I can’t explain what it means to me after slogging around here all winter,’’ an emotional Kirby said. “He’s tough, he’s consistent and he lengthened down the straight.’’

On a day which has captured the imagination and was screened on terrestrial television, the winner’s purse came to £124,500 and continued trainer Marco Botti’s good run. It is hard to argue with prize money on this scale and some horses are simply better suited to the all-weather surface. In his younger days Grendisar tried turf racing three times and once finished fourth of four at Haydock. It is fair to say this is more his game.

GIBBONS AGAIN

It was a splendid afternoon for jockey Graham Gibbons, who followed his win on Volunteer Point in the opener with another on David Barron’s Wolowitz (4/1) in the Unibet 3 Year Old Sprint over five furlongs. He was quite possibly helped by the antics of favourite Gracious John, who was unwilling to enter the stalls, stumbled out of them, tried to pull John Egan’s arms out and then ran into a degree of trouble.

Wolowitz, a son of Intense Focus, clearly loves artificial surfaces and was winning his fourth race in a row, though Gibbons had to be at his strongest to force him past Sign Of The Kodiac with old rival Kadrizzi back in third. These three had it between them after rank outsider Krystallite had set a blistering pace.

Silvestre de Sousa warmed up for his title defence on turf with a 10/1 success in the last, the 32Red 3 Year Old Mile, on David Elsworth’s Sea Of Flames.

Again, favourite backers knew their fate early as Haalick, who had the winner well behind last time, seemed to find trouble early on and could finish no nearer than third as Sea Of Flames worked hard to master Godolphin’s free-running Race Day. This was quite a turnaround in form but Elsworth has never hesitated to give horses another chance, hence his enviable record in big races.

Racing at Wolverhampton

WOLVERHAMPTON also staged an attractive card. David Brown’s lightly-raced Turn Tide justified 9/2 favouritism in the bet365 Handicap over a mile and another market leader, Simon Crisford’s Gang Warfare, 3/1, ran away with the mile and three-quarter event later on. Both contests were worth more than £32,000 to the winner.