OSCAR-WINNING actress Dame Judi Dench is holidaying on an island off Scotland but still managed to play a starring role on the first stage of the Flat season when Smokey Oakey won the £125,000 William Hill Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster in the hands of Jimmy Quinn.

Quinn was under strict instructions from trainer Mark Tompkins to make his challenge as late as possible and at one point it looked as if he might not be able to make his move when he wanted. However, he found a way through on the stands rails, and Smokey Oakey quickened to lead inside the final furlong to pass the post with 1Ä lengths to spare over the 2006 winner of the mile test, the gallant Blythe Knight.

For good measure, Tompkins saddled third-placed Babodana, who won the race for him in 2004, and he said: “I have trained for Dame Judi’s chauffeur Bryan Agar for many years and he has had shares in a lot of winners. I met her a couple of times at Goodwood when she was at the Chichester Festival and one day she said, ‘I had better have a horse with you’ and that is how she got involved with Smokey Oakey, who she now owns in partnership with Bryan.”

Quinn also won the race on High Low in 1992, and he said: “Everything went perfectly, when I won it the first time I won it from the front but this time I came from the back.”

The £40,000 William Hill Mile, for horses which missed the cut for the Lincoln, was won by the Alan Munro-ridden Don’t Panic, and trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam reflected: “It was a pity we had to miss the big one because I think he would have gone close, and I would not have run him in this consolation race if the sponsors hadn’t added £20,000 in prize money.”