She's looking forward to a week at the Cazoo St Leger Festival. Check out our columnists' thoughts on the big race action at Doncaster.
How good is Baaeed?
This time last year we were discussing the claims of Hukum in the St Leger at Doncaster and 12 months on it’s his little brother Baaeed who is stealing the headlines.
Hukum could only finish fifth in the Classic but has really come good this season as a four-year-old and you suspect that will be the case with his upwardly mobile younger sibling. The William Haggas-trained Baaeed only made his racecourse debut in June and is now a Group One winner and unbeaten in five starts.
He has taken everything thrown at him in his stride and this powerful colt can only get even better in time. I’d love to see him at Ascot on QIPCO British Champions Day in the QEII where he could be set for a match up with top miler Palace Pier and Sky Bet can’t separate them at the moment, with the duo 2/1 joint favourites.
The main concern there would be underfoot conditions which tend to be soft at that time of year. Palace Pier has already proven himself on the easier ground we generally get in mid-October, whereas the Haggas team have stressed they wouldn’t want to see their stable star on too testing a surface. Either way if they both rock up we could see fireworks.
It has to be said onditions would most likely suit Baaeed at a Breeders’ Cup but that sort of test may be too much at this stage of his burgeoning career. Let’s hope he stays in training next year and we get to see him at many a top table where he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
Doncaster St Leger Meeting preview
Dwelling on the past is often a bad idea and racecourse executives at Doncaster will be hoping to consign some of the memories of last year’s Leger meeting to history.
You may recall in 2020 that the track was all set to welcome crowds back as part of a four-day government trial but the plug was pulled after just one day, costing the racecourse significant amounts of money and disappointing thousands of potential racegoers.
Thankfully they can throw their doors open fully this time round and there should be a superb atmosphere at the South Yorkshire venue this week, befitting the level of racing we’ve got to look forward to, with up to 50,000 expected to attend over the four days.
I’m looking forward to being among them at Sunny Donny for Sky Sports Racing and for once, it looks like the weather is going to play ball and show us where that nickname originated from.
It all gets under way on Wednesday, with the world’s oldest classic, the Cazoo St Leger, the highlight on Saturday.
Will the race pan out the way the bookmakers expect it to? Hurricane Lane is Sky Bet’s 4/6 favourite and bidding to become the second odds-on winner of the final Classic of the season in the past three years following Logician in 2019.
His record is superb with his only defeat in a six-race career coming in the Derby, where it was reported he lost both front shoes in the desperate ground. As a son of the mighty Frankel out of a mare who stayed two miles, the step up to a mile-and-six won’t be an issue. He’s very hard to oppose and my idea of the winner.
What are the biggest dangers to Hurricane Lane?
What can give him the biggest scare then? Johnny Murtagh will be hoping his Ottoman Empire (11/2) is the horse to do that, but what a leap into the unknown it is for this lad, who won his maiden in April, before landing another couple of lower grade races before taking the step up in grade when winning the Group 3 Gordon Stakes last time out. Unlike the favourite, he isn’t bred to stay this far and that's a concern.
Richard Hannon’s Mojo Star (8/1) could be the biggest danger if he can reproduce his run in the Derby when second to Hurricane Lane’s stablemate Adayar. He is no longer the best maiden in training after dropping into that company at Newbury last time out and finally getting that monkey off his back with a comfortable win.
The worry for him, and possibly a few the protagonists, will be the ground. It should be lovely, flat racing ground, but it will most likely be the quickest surface many of these three-year-olds will have encountered and that will be against Mojo Star.
Taking that into account, I’m finding it hard to get away from the favourite, who oozes class and deserves to be the short-priced market leader. His owners Godolphin have won the race six times, the first being Classic Cliche back in 1995, and Hurricane Lane can add his name to that illustrious roll of honour for trainer Charlie Appleby who is bidding to win his first Leger.
There’s some great racing before then though with some potential stars lining up on Town Moor throughout the week. It’s the human stars that will be attracting plenty of attention on Wednesday with the popular Leger Legends race for former stars of the saddle one of the highlights.
There are some great jockeys set to dust off their boots, including two giants of jump racing who haven’t been away for too long. Richard Johnson and Barry Geraghty come out of retirement to take part as does another of their former weighing room colleagues, Noel Fehily. It should be great fun and hugely competitive.
On Thursday I’m looking forward to seeing if Inspiral can maintain her unbeaten record in the Cazoo May Hill Stakes. Some superb juvenile fillies have won this race in the past, including the mighty Laurens, and this girl hasn’t done anything wrong in her two starts so far. She’s 4/6 favourite with Sky Bet and already 10/1 market meader with the firm for next year’s QIPCO 1000 Guineas.
Friday’s racing will be lit up by Stradivarius who was the standout performer at York’s Ebor meeting thanks to his ding-dong battle with Spanish Mission to win the Lonsdale Cup.
He may be getting on in years, but no one has told Stradivarius and his superb mental strength and sassy attitude endears him to racing fans old and new. He will be a short price (currently even-money favourite with Sky Bet) to win his second Doncaster Cup, but thanks to his advancing years, not so short as to be unappealing.
There would have to be a concern that quicker ground conditions may mean that a couple of his closest rivals, Trueshan and Princess Zoe, stay away, in which case that even money won’t be anywhere to be seen on the day.
On Saturday we have a Classic as well as Classic clues. Clearly there's no pressure on John and Thady Gosden to get Reach For The Moon to peak condition in time to celebrate his owner/breeder, HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022!
In the meantime he can continue his progression in the Champagne Stakes on Leger Day. In four starts he hasn’t finished out of the first two and his second place in the Chesham at Royal Ascot looks particularly strong as he was runner-up to Point Lonsdale, who has a Group One mission on Sunday in the National Stakes at the Curragh.
They are potentially the two best juvenile colts in training then and currently dominate the 2000 Guineas betting with Aidan O’Brien’s colt 7/1 favourite and Reach For The Moon 16/1 joint next best. Middle distances are going to be their bag in 2022 and they are also first two in the betting for the Cazii Derby at 7/1 and 10/1 respectively. As I say, no pressure there then for connections...
So, we are set fair for a fabulous four days in Doncaster and I hope to see you there.
