Ocean a surprise winner of the Lincoln Ocean Tempest, fresh from a spell in Dubai, ran out a shock 20-1 winner of the turf Flat season's first big race, the William Hill Lincoln at Doncaster. The five-year-old grey, trained by John Ryan in Newmarket, won on his last three starts in the UK at the back-end of last season but has had six runs at Meydan this year without making much impact. Ridden by Adam Kirby, he held off the persistent challenge of the well-fancied joint-favourite Tullius to score by a length and three-quarters, with Robert The Painter third and Sweet Lightning fourth. Ryan said: "We ran him in the consolation race last year, but he wasn't ready. This was always his aim. He paid his way in Dubai but we thought he was a bit high in the weights for this, but we knew this ground was his thing. I couldn't believe how good it was when I walked it. "My father (former trainer Mick) landed plenty of touches in big races, but he said we'd done it the wrong way round by laying one out for a race by getting it to the top of the handicap. "It's been a dream to win a big race like this. We're a small stable, we have 20 horses in training, we always average more than that in winners. We backed him. I was confident because I thought he was relatively fresh, which might sound stupid. "His lead horse (Tenor) won at 20-1 at Lingfield on Friday, which gave us even more confidence." Kirby added: "He's a perfect little horse for the job and he loved the ground. When I asked him, he dug deep. I'm chuffed to bits with him. He's a decent horse on his day."
