With spring in the air and a welcome change in the weather, at the weekend it was the start of the flat season for 2025.

The traditional curtain raiser at Doncaster once again provided some excellent racing and a few surprises.

The feature race of the two-day meeting is the Lincoln Handicap, which is a cavalry charge over one mile.

Trainer William Haggas knows all about winning this race having been successful on four occasions. On Saturday he made it a record breaking win number five after Godwinson was declared first past the post in a thrilling finish to the race.

Under Cieran Fallon, 32 years after his father Kieran won the same race on High Premium, he had to come from the back of the field and with two furlongs remaining still looked like having plenty to do, however he judged the ride to perfection to catch Oliver Show in the final stride to take the £150,000 race by a short head.

"That was a nice surprise," Haggas said from his Newmarket base. "He got a great run through but Cieren gave him a very confident ride. Fair play, that's what he wanted to do and I thought that was a good idea.

"We thought the ground had dried up a bit too much for him but clearly not. I didn't think he was well handicapped – but he wasn't that well treated, he only won by a nose and a neck."

Fallon was delighted to launch the turf season with a valuable success and said: "Every jockey wants to win that race and it's great to start the year off that way. I was quietly confident this morning that if things went our way we had a chance, his work at home had been very good.

"The race panned out perfectly, we were drawn on the wrong side but I was able to tuck in, I got a lot of cover, they went quite hard and with the strong headwind I was able to pick up when I wanted and he was very tough to the line. You have to ride him like that and with the ground drying up it helped us."

In other news, jockey Nicola Currie has received a 39-day whip ban after going one strike over the limit at Wolverhampton in February, her fourth offence in less than four months.

Jockey Hollie Doyle has become just the second women’s jockey after Hayley Turner in history to ride 1,000 winners in the UK.

The landmark occasion was reached at Lingfield after riding Handle With Care to victory for trainer Marco Botti.

Dual Coral Cup winner Langer Dan has been retired after being found to have an underlying heart problem.

The nine-year-old missed the Stayers Hurdle earlier this month because of a respiratory issue.

It was hoped he could run in the Grade One William Hill Aintree Hurdle this week but further veterinary investigation detected a heart issue.

By Peter Moore