St Leger Betting
Autumn is on the way and the final classic race of the 2011 Flat season in Britain, the Ladbrokes St Leger comes ‘under orders’ this coming Saturday (10 September).
The highlight of the four day St Leger Festival, crowds will flock to Town Moor in the hope of seeing a worthy winner of the historic event for which Sea Moon is a hot favourite with the sponsors to land the spoils.
Last season the form book was well and truly upset as the red-hot evens favourite Rewilding was beaten by Arctic Cosmos (12/1). Arctic Cosmos became John Gosden’s third St Leger winner and the Newmarket-based trainer has two chances in the 2011 St Leger Stakes renewal in Masked Marvel and Buthelezi.
10 rivals are set to oppose Sea Moon, including Godolphin’s Blue Bunting, Michael Owen’s Brown Panther, Richard Hannon’s Census and Aidan O’Brien’s Seville.
While the St Leger is the race that everyone is looking forward too, Doncaster’s St Leger Festival starts on the Wednesday and the highlight of the day is the Leger Legends race.
After a relatively low-key start to the meeting on Wednesday, Thursday’s Group 2 Park Hill Stakes could offer a decent chance for David Lanigan’s Meeznah to go two better than last year when finishing third. Friday promises to be a cracking day’s racing with three Group 2 events; the Flying Childers Stakes, the Doncaster Cup, and the May Hill Stakes all attracting classy performers.
Saturday sees the excitement building up to the Ladbrokes St Leger, with the Group 2 Champagne Stakes opening the card, followed by one of the big sprint betting events of the whole year, the Portland Handicap. After the big event itself another Group 2, the Park Stakes, will keep punters and racing fans enthralled on what is certain to be a stellar day’s racing.
Outsiders can strike in St Leger race
There are many good outsiders in the filed looking to cause an upset in the oldest of the five British Classic Races. Moonax came home at St Leger odds of 40/1 for trainer Barry Hills in 1994 and the trainer will be hoping Daraahem can cause another shock at massive St Leger odds this year.
However, favourites in the St Leger betting have won four of the last seven St Leger races and it will be interesting to see which colt is made favourite come the day of the Ladbrokes sponsored classic on September 10.
