St. Leger meeting at Doncaster: second day

The St. Leger meeting continues today at Doncaster with a strong card and massive prize-money. This is particularly true of the 2yo sales race over 6 1/2 furlongs at 15.25 CET, with 421,500 GBP up for grabs. Not surprisingly this has attracted a large field of 21 runners, with even Aidan O´Brien sending a couple. Some trainers are making a huge effort here, Charlie Hills has 5 runners, and Hannon and Fahey 3 each.

However the logical winner has to be Bogart (Kevin Ryan/ Phillip Makin), an easy winner of a similar race at Newmarket 3 weeks ago. The best races of the day in terms of class are the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes over 1 3/4 miles at 16.00 and the Group 3 Sceptre Stakes over 7 furlongs at 14.55, both for fillies and mares only. In the latter event Magic Eye (Marco Botti/ William Buick) makes her second appearance for her new trainer, after having previously been with Andreas Löwe at Cologne. She ran badly last time, but we hope she goes better today although she faces a tough task. The Aga Khan´s Alanza (John Oxx/ Johnny Murtagh), one of 3 Irish entries, look the likeliest winner here. Meeznah (David Lanigan/ Frankie Dettori) is also good enough on her day, but is not th most consistent.

Frankie could have more luck on Godolphin´s debutant Encke (Mahmood al Zarooni) in the 2yo maiden at 16.35, while we like the top-weights Besito (Willie Jarvis/ Kieren Fallon) in the 2yo handicap at 14.25 and Internationaldebut (Peter Midgeley/ Freddie Tylicki) in the 6 furlongs handicap at 17.10, both easy last-time-out winners and capable of following up today.