Blaklion owner Darren Yates has spring double plan with Lincoln hope South Seas

Ambitious owner Darren Yates, who set the cat among the Grand National pigeons with a big-money swoop for Blaklion this week, has revealed he is planning a crack at the spring double.

Yates is looking forward to Aintree on April 6 for his new recruit, whom he picked up for £300,000 plus VAT. But the lifelong racing fan is also eyeing the Unibet Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster the previous week with 150,000gns buy South Seas, another addition to his burgeoning team at Phil Kirby's North Yorkshire yard.

"I have eight or nine horses with Phil now," said Yates, 52, who owns a building company and is also involved in a childcare company

"I bought South Seas at the sales and I'm hoping he'll go close in the Lincoln; the plan for him is to go straight there. I bought a nice horse out of John Gosden's yard called Staplegrove and I'm hoping he'll run in the mile-and-a-quarter handicap on the Sunday at the same meeting at Doncaster.

"I've had horses for about 20 years and I'm trying to up the class all the time, which obviously Phil is happy with."

However Yates's headline act is Blaklion, who won the Becher Chase and finished fourth in the Grand National in 2017 when trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies.

"He's a fantastic horse to get hold of," said the Lytham St Annes-based owner, who revealed he had had his eyes on the ten-year-old for a while.

"I've liked him for a long time. I was chatting to the owners and I was to-ing and fro-ing for a month or so. I watched him run over hurdles at Haydock and I thought 'he looks as though he's going to run a blinder in the National', so I tried one more time.

"I had to give £300,000 for him, which is enough for a ten-year-old, but I think he has a live chance in the National."

A wet three weeks could mean Blaklion makes his debut for Yates, who famously won £550,000 from a £67 bet on Frankie Dettori's 'Magnificent Seven' at Ascot in 1996, at the Cheltenham Festival next month.

The owner said: "We've entered him in the Pertemps and he's still in the Gold Cup, but I've bought him to run in the National and I'd be just a little worried about running him anywhere first.

"But if it came up really soft in the Gold Cup, Phil and I would have to have a chat."

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