Dancing Willoughby perfect candidate for St Leger

Logician, John Gosden’s unbeaten grey colt, will be sent off a shortpriced favourite to win the final Classic of the season, the William Hill St Leger at Doncaster today.

He is an amazing stamp of a horse and is built more like a three-mile chaser than a three-year-old colt. On the evidence so far, including the Great Voltigeur, the step up to a mile and three-quarters should help rather than hinder him.

But, in a race full of horses that are proven at the distance, stamina could prove a chink in his armour, and although Frankel seems to throw horses that stay, the stallion was best between a mile and a mile and a quarter.

Victory for Sir Ron Priestley and Franny Norton, 49, would be a great story, but his problem is the opposite of Logician’s – does he have the speed?

Sir Dragonet finished fifth in the Derby but disappointed over a mile and a quarter last time and I prefer Il Paradiso and Padraig Beggy, a jockey who is making a habit of popping up in Classics.

However, Andrew Balding’s team has been in grand form at Doncaster this week and in Dashing Willoughby, winner of the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot, he has an ideal St Leger candidate.

The colt has been beaten twice since Ascot but with excuses. At Newmarket, over a mile and a half, he went too slow in front but was not beaten far by a course specialist. In the Goodwood Cup, he foundered only in the last furlong at the end of a strongly-run two miles.

Oisin Murphy foregoes the ride to stick with the Japanese filly Deirdre in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown. She should go very close again while Laurens should also take some beating in the Matron Stakes.

The pick of French Arc trials tomorrow is the Prix Niel in which Sottsass, the French Derby winner, attempts a mile and a half for the first time, while in Ireland, the Goffs Vincent O’brien National Stakes pits Godolphin’s Pinatubo against Ballydoyle’s No1 two-yearold Armory.

Stradivarius completed the traditional “stayers triple crown” yesterday when adding the Magners Rose Doncaster Cup to the Ascot Gold and Goodwood Cups – despite it not being in the plan. “He was getting so playful at home, I had to enter him,” explained Gosden.