I still wonder about Seville. I always thought that with his pedigree, he would need a trip.

Trouble with him is that his overall form just looks a bit behind the others. His only win has been in a Tiperary minor event run in a bog, and his best run this year, behind Treasure beach in the Irish Derby, does leave him with a bit to find.

However he might well improve significantly for the step up in distance as I say.

I feel that this St Leger may be a real test of stamina, with Godolphin making it t test as they feel Blue Bunting will be suited by a real battle (they may be right too). 

Seville is not for me but i can see now how he could win it if I am right about his pedigree meaning he is a real strong stayer, maybe a Gold Cup horse in the making.

sisyphus, a poet I am not but have you allowed for the fact that Blue Bunting has wings?

The Blue Bunting is mainly a songbird and its colours are that of the bright blue that Godolphin carry. If she plays the right tune she has more than a squeak, but against the boys I think she's too weak.
P.s.   C Moon has Wings too according to McCartney.

I'm guessing from that quote that he never had him fit enough

There are many ways to train horses, and training in public is easy to get away with when you pretend to be trying a knew distance, then simply run off much too quick Like Cape Blanco did over a mile, thus ensuring a very good pace for Canford Cliffs (investment protection)to come off. Likewise others have been doing the same all year and this allows them to extend their season.

That should also have said (top of TM Avenue)after the lights (tis a 30).

Gallileo ground

Sisphyus
I'm a bit confused by your lengthy post, is it Post modernistic existential poetic verse or utter b0llocks?

Final declarations:

1 (2) Brown Panther          9  0       Kieren Fallon     
2 (6) Buthelezi (USA)        9  0 H     Robert Havlin     
3 (9) Census (IRE)           9  0       Richard Hughes   
4 (4) Genius Beast (USA)     9  0       Silvestre De Sousa
5 (3) Masked Marvel          9  0       William Buick     
6 (1) Sea Moon               9  0       Olivier Peslier   
7 (5) Seville (GER)          9  0       Joseph O'Brien   
8 (7) Blue Bunting (USA)     8 11       Frankie Dettori   
9 (8) Rumh (GER)             8 11       Richard Hills

Group 3 run to standard into a head wind...Sea Moon develops a cough and waits for the Arc

Meeznah hates soft ground and she hosed up!!!!!

Why do you think Seville can only place? Apart from the Derby and last time, where he ran way below form, he has run pretty much the same every time. I have his best figures remarkably consistent and without finding improvement he ran how he was entitled to. I don't think he has ducked the issue at all, he's just been up against better horses, if he runs to his mark tomorrow he'll be difficult to beat.

Meeznah ran so deplorably in the Geoffrey Freer it is hard to take that run literrallt but if she ran to form there you would have to say she would have been close to Census & Brown Panther.

Yes, I understand your point, I just don't see there has definitely been an occasion where he should've won but didn't.

Someone wants to lay Brown Panther for £250 at 17.5. Top bookie price is 10/1.

With you all the way El Apache Proven class & Classic form struggling to understand the odds myself I've plenty on at 9/2 & keep thinking someone's going to arrest me for fraud!

Fillies don't have a great record tho, do they?

I remember backing my all-time fav filly Diminuendo for this race

She cantered up alongsides the leaders at 2 out looking full of running
but in the end the brave filly was out-stayed by Minsters Son

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKjgl3wYk3I

With a 16mph southerly wind expected throughout the day tomorrow, the ground should ride even faster..

It will be Good to Firm by the start of racing tomorrow.

From the Guardian's Chris Cook:

The oldest Classic is a little poorly. It struggles on, hoping no one will notice, but can no longer achieve things that used to be straightforward, like attracting Derby winners.


Age, in fact, is not the problem so much as irrelevance. The St Leger really doesn't feel like a race that matters in the way that a Classic should. If you're a committed fan of horse racing, prevented from watching the telly by some dreadful mischance this weekend, the main thing you'll miss will be the Arc trials on Sunday.


This is a sport that values its traditions more than most, but Racing For Change seems to have altered attitudes to the point where we are at least prepared to consider doing things differently. If the Leger's standing is to be revived, some kind of modification will surely be necessary.


But before we go tinkering with it, it might be a good idea to identify what exactly has gone wrong. Here's my list of problems facing the Doncaster race.


1) The bloodstock industry's disdain

This would be the main issue. Any owner of a horse who may one day be a commercial stallion is scared stiff to run him in the Leger for fear that he might actually win the thing, proving his bottomless reserves of, ugh, stamina.

The bloodstock injury is interested only in speed. Lightning sprinters, brilliant milers, these horses will have no gaps in their dance cards. Why on earth would you send your beautiful mare for a tryst with some beast who could go all the way around Newbury without running out of puff?

Winning the Derby is bad enough. There's enormous prestige and everyone is happy for you and you might make some money in your first three years at stud, before the offspring actually make it to the track. At that point, everyone realises that you are, in fact, going to be a sire of three-mile handicap chasers.

Winning the Leger is practically the same thing as gelding yourself. No one is going to be interested. Lucarno, the 2007 winner, was available for just £2,000 this year, Brian Boru (2003) for €2,500. It's as well these handsome animals don't realise their lowly status or they might lose the will to do their jobs.

The Leger has become a consolation prize for slow horses. If we want it to be relevant again, maybe we should lop off a couple of furlongs and make it a second Derby, taking place at a much fairer racecourse than Epsom.


2) It's a staying championship without any known stayers

One of the reasons we don't get more excited about the Leger is that the runners are fighting for a crown that none of them have previously worn or aspired to. Who's the best three-year-old over a mile and three-quarters? Um, well, I suppose we'll find out on Saturday. It's just not something you think about until the second Saturday in September.

After the race, we'll know that this one stayed, while that one didn't. It will probably not feel like a great surprise because there was no way to be sure in the first place.

There are horses out there with established reputations over this sort of distance. They are four or older and have built up rivalries with each other in races like the Sagaro, the Henry II, the Yorkshire Cup, the Gold Cup and the Goodwood Cup.

If you don't approve of shortening the Leger, maybe we could make it more interesting by opening it up to these older horses that people have actually heard of and care about. Followers of the sport feel a fondness for these plodders that is often out of all proportion to their ability. Persian Punch and Yeats both have their own statues, for crying out loud.

High Chaparral, born two years before Yeats, won more than twice as much prize money and became the first horse to win two runnings of the Breeders' Cup Turf. Where's his statue? Ah, but he wasn't a dreadfully slow two-miler.

Opening up the Leger to these popular snails would certainly help with the race's profile, though it would also open up a competition with the Irish St Leger, which has been open to older horses since 1983. It would also mean the end of the Doncaster Cup, designed for those same older horses, but perhaps the Leger might meld with the Doncaster Cup to create something better than either.


3) Remember all those great Leger winners?

Horse races don't last very long and a large part of the pleasure lies in the buildup. Racing UK know this, which is why they show so many replays of previous runnings in the days before a major race.

With almost any Group One, there is a healthy list of previous renewals that blew our socks off at the time. Such, I suggest, is not the case with the St Leger.

Conduit was a smashing horse who never got the credit he deserved, in my book. Classic Cliche was pretty good. We all liked User Friendly.

But otherwise the list is pretty bland, full of Scorpions and Nedawis and Toulons. The days of Oh So Sharp and Reference Point, winners to make any race burst with pride, are a very long time ago. Nijinsky and Bustino won their Legers in a different world.

If you didn't care about the past 20 Legers, will you care about the next one?


4) Too many targets

The brilliance of the jumps season is that it all funnels towards the Cheltenham Festival, where the best horses in each discipline are thrown together. Such is not the case with the Flat season, which provides so many opportunities that it is a simple matter for the best horses to avoid each other. In this case, it also means there is no reason to target an unfashionable race unless there is really nothing else you can win.

If you have a good three-year-old who lacks the speed for a mile, you have options coming out of your ears at this time of year. If he's very good, you'll be thinking of the Arc, possibly stopping by the Niel on Sunday or Newbury's Arc Trial next weekend. You might also consider the Breeders' Cup Turf, or other races in Japan or Hong Kong later in the year.

Doncaster is easily avoided, which is why the Leger's fall from fashion is such a problem.


5) Can you bet on it?

The outcome of the Leger, it seems to me, is either tediously predictable (Milan, Scorpion, Sixties Icon) or completely mad (Mastery? Are you kidding?). Of course, even if that were a fair summation, it would still leave a contest interesting enough to attract lots of punters.

But it doesn't work for me, partly because the evidence as to whether each horse will stay the trip is so limited. Also, when I back a horse for a major race, I like to think that connections have had it as the target for some time, whereas the feeling with many of Saturday's runners is that they have ended up here. Even now, some of their owners would not be unhappy to learn that their horse does not stay a mile and six furlongs.

Are you depressed on the race's behalf? Resentful? Well, me too, because my instinct is that the sport's traditions should be preserved and celebrated.

But is it worth raising your voice in anger to defend this race? I put it to you that, if the St Leger did not exist, it would not be necessary to invent it and no one would think to do so.

We can try to soldier on with the Leger in its present form, if you insist, but I really think the time has come to try something different.



Personally, I think that's the biggest load of guff I've read in a long time. I could rip it to bits but don't really know where to start....