LOGIC SAYS IT MUST BE FRANKIE!
BOOKMAKERS could be crushed under a Frankie Dettori-inspired Classic avalanche when the Italian partners red-hot favourite Logician in this afternoon’s £700,000 St Leger at Doncaster.
Sponsors William Hill make Logician evens favourite, while rival firm Coral predict the son of Frankel is likely to start odds-on as punters try to cash in again on Dettori’s money-spinning summer.
Victory would be Dettori’s sixth in the St Leger, as well as his 15th Group One win of the season.
John Gosden believes Logician’s Dettori-influenced odds are too short for a colt with so little experience, but the trainer admits his win in the Voltigeur at York last month was impressive.
‘He came to us late but has been a lovely, progressive horse with a great attitude,’ said Gosden. ‘He does fit the Leger bill but he is not that experienced.
‘The big, long straight will suit him and I am sure the pace will be testing. The big question is the trip. He is not guaranteed to get it. Frankel never went beyond a mile-and-a-quarter. It is the last 115 yards which catches them out. I’d be confident up to one mile, six furlongs.’
There was betting support for Aidan O’Brien’s Chester Vase winner Sir Dragonet yesterday but like Martyn Meade’s Geoffrey Freer Stakes winner Technician, the fast ground hardly aids his case, while the suspicion is that honest gallopers Sir Ron Priestley and Nayef Road lack the quality of the unbeaten Logician who could be an even bigger player next season.
The quick ground ruled Dee Ex Bee out of yesterday’s Doncaster Cup won by Dettori and Gosden with 1-9 favourite Stradivarius, who extended his winning sequence to ten races.
Victory made him the first horse to win the stayers’ Triple Crown — Ascot Gold Cup, Goodwood Cup and Doncaster Cup — since Double Trigger in 1995.
Making Stradivarius a threetime Ascot Gold Cup winner next season will be the main aim but this time next year we may be talking about him as a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe contender.
Dettori said: ‘He has one more gear than the rest.’
Dettori also won the five-furlong Flying Childers Stakes on Simon Crisford-trained A’Ali. Arguably, the fastest British two-year-old of 2019, A’Ali heads to the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint at Santa Anita in November.