Lloyd-webbers hold centre stage at Doncaster
Lah Ti Dar can provide first Classic success Watson aiming high after Soldier’s Call win
This is, perhaps, the biggest day in the history of Lord and Lady Lloydwebber’s Watership Down Stud; Lah Ti Dar is favourite to win the William Hill St Leger, 35 minutes after younger brother Too Darn Hot, an even hotter favourite, runs in the Howcroft Industrial Supplies Champagne Stakes at Doncaster.
The stud was founded by the Lloyd-webbers in the early 1990s and much of its success, both in the sales ring and on the racecourse, is down to the purchase of Darara from the Aga Khan in 1996.
After four barren years, aged 21, she bred Evita, dam of Trethias, who runs in a Listed race at Leopardstown today. A year later she produced Dar Re Mi, who won £2.6 million, including the Pretty Polly, the Yorkshire Oaks, Prix Vermeille and Sheema Classic and, at 23, she bred Rewilding, another Sheema Classic winner.
Every bit as good a broodmare as racehorse, Dar Re Mi is the dam of Lah Ti Dar and Too Darn Hot, who looks the outstanding colt of this year’s juvenile crop, as well as So Mi Dar, the 2016 Musidora winner.
The Classics have eluded Watership Down – the Oaks has been something of an unlucky race for it – but Lah Ti Dar can put that right in the oldest race in that genre. John Gosden’s filly has won her three starts by an aggregate 20 lengths and, unless we are all getting carried away by her 10-length Galtres romp at York, she appears to have the class to overcome inexperience.
Whether she stays a mile-and three-quarters we will not know until the race is run, but she was not stopping at York. It was stamina rather than speed which took her away from her rivals, and it was encouraging that Frankie Dettori was unequivocal on dismounting, saying: “St Leger”.
Of course, with five runners and Kew Gardens already a winner over the trip, Aidan O’brien is not going to die wondering what would have happened had the 2018 St Leger not been a sprint finish.
Godolphin’s Old Persian won the Great Voltigeur, where he claimed the scalp of Kew Gardens, and is perhaps a little underestimated. Maid Up, who is also proven over the distance, was supplemented at a cost of £50,000 on Monday and looks the each-way bet.
For as long as Archie Watson trains he will have a soft spot for Soldier’s Call. The colt gave the second-season trainer a first Royal Ascot winner, a first Group Three and, yesterday, a first Group Two when making all in the Wainwrights Flying Childers at Doncaster. With the Prix de l’abbaye and the Breeders’ Cup on the agenda, he could yet give him a first Group One.
Speaking of a potential crack at the Abbaye, Watson said: “He did a quicker time at Chantilly, on similar ground, than Marsha did when she won the Abbaye there. There are lots of good five-furlong horses around, [but] you’d like to see him getting a shed-load of weight from them and seeing what he can do.”
Thomas Hobson, third in last year’s Melbourne Cup, put in a good trial for this year’s race when beating stable companion Max Dynamite half a length in the Doncaster Cup.