TONY CALVIN: 11/1 Dear Cat to get the cream in the opener

A four-day St Leger meeting is a real push, as surely even diehard Doncaster fans would admit, but they have ITV coverage all the way, good prize money, and Thursday’s fields have held up very well indeed.

The ground looks like being good, with no extremes of weather due, too.

So what’s not to like?

Well, personally, I could have done without three 2yo races kicking off the meeting (and there are five on the card, including three nurseries, believe it or not) but where there is muck there is brass – that must be a Yorkshire saying – so let’s kick on.

I covered the performance of the last three weeks or so of this column on Monday’s The Racing Room podcast (available on Youtube, Apple and Spotify), so please go and have a listen there.

I’ll park that chat for a good while now, though the focus will remain on harder work (see the Dear Cat information) and horses away from the top of the market, in the main. I certainly won’t be chasing bets, or going short, anyway.

Go well.

1.50pm Doncaster – 11/1 Dear Cat could get the cream in the opener

Right, bravery to the four, I have decided to go in four-handed in this fillies’ 16-runner nursery.

No, that was most certainly said in jest.

The pace map below strongly suggests the pace is middle to high here – the stalls are in the centre, so that means the speed should be stands side if the above pans out – so maybe Dear Cat is not ideally positioned in six.

She is actually one of the six forward-goers I have identified here though, and she has another prominent racer alongside her in seven, so she may be okay (the reasoning is she doesn’t get detached, but it is a worry).

This filly has a very generous and willing attitude, whose progress in each of her three runs has been marked.

I loved the way she did it from the front over 7f at Salisbury last time, which suggests a mark of 79 could be exploitable, as I wouldn’t get too hung up on the fact that the 66/1 runner-up has come out and got stuffed since (that came on very deep ground).

Sentiment means little in racing, but it’d be good to see Warren Greatrex have an ITV winner, too.

They have a small Flat team but they have had a fair 2024 on the level (they are also going well over the jumps at the moment), with a recent scorer thrown in alongside a [40/1] third, both for the same owners as Dear Cat’s.

However, it is impossible to be bullish or confident in a race of this nature, and I admit I was a little disappointed that the first firm up only put her in at [11/1].

And the next two to issue their odds were only 9s and 10s – the generally available prices – so maybe I was being overly-optimistic (most unlike me).

In fact, looking at her chances again, I was.

I did some more digging on the filly on Wednesday morning – that is to say it wasn’t publicly available info – and it transpires she has long since been targeted at this race and she actually won at Salisbury despite having a hold-up (minor foot injury) after her previous run at Newbury (some 51 days earlier), so she wasn’t thought to be cherry-ripe there. That has to be encouraging. And since this column first went live on Wednesday morning, the third from Salisbury won at Lingfield.

Take the 11s if you can, or the more generally available 10s, win-only.

2.25pm Doncaster – 12/1 An Outlaw’s Grace a big player if headgear revives him

Things don’t get a great deal easier with a 20-runner sales race, though the market has narrowed it down to five or six, it seems.

One of those is An Outlaw’s Grace, who was a horse I was considering backing each way at a price (namely 20s or bigger) in the Solario if all eight stood their ground.

In the event, he was the one that got pulled out (on account of the going).

He was due to wear first-time cheekpieces in that Group race at Sandown and he is set to do so here, which may or may not be a positive for him. The trainer’s record with this headgear angle (20 from 140,) is neither here nor there, as well. But okay.

But, as it stands, he has a very good form chance, perhaps a fair bit better than the opening quotes of 10s suggests.

The problem, and it is a fairly big one, is that form case rests on his fourth to Arabie, Shadow Army and Celandine in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin at Chantilly in July and he has regressed since, with his sixth in a sales race at the Ebor meeting pretty underwhelming.

But that run indicated that this slightly longer trip would suit, and I imagine Ryan Moore, who rode him at York, suggested the cheekpieces for him. And his draw in 13 looks okay, viewing the pace in the race (see below)

There is little doubt that Intrusively, Caburn and Camille Pissarro pose a significant test for him – I could easily chuck another two of three into the mix, not least the general 8s chance King Of Bear and the nibbled-at Hallasan  – and that regressive profile gnaws away at me.

And when I went back and had another look at the York race he wasn’t too willing a partner for Moore, so perhaps the headgear does need to do a job here (and his half-sister Thanks Monica blossomed for blinkers).

A big field may not be ideal for this possible thinker, but any double figures is okay (12s in a couple of spots now), as are the four places if you want to play each way.

3.00pm Doncaster – 25/1 Miss Tonnerre could be the price pick in a tricky race

The first firm up (well, actually it was a group of three firms under the same ownership umbrella) made Desert Flower the [11/8] favourite in this 1m Group 2 May Hill Stakes, and I didn’t know what to make of that price, if truth be told.

Generous, or defensive?

It was actually spot on, as that is the general price about her, as it stands.

Now, this filly has been tremendously impressive in her two starts on the July course to date – she dismissed Flight, a 5s chance in here, on her debut – and this race was immediately nominated for her after she sauntered home at odds of [1/4] in early August.

She could easily chew these up and spit them out, but I have two minor concerns.

The first is that Charlie Appleby’s horses are not really firing in the manner we have been accustomed to – many times this season they have been operating around the 30 per cent mark when I have done trainer-form assessments – even if they are hardly running poorly.

And the immediate post-race comment after this horse won last time suggested they may have wanted to get another run into her before this test, which obviously hasn’t materialized.

And I suppose an obvious, extra worry is that she meets a much better calibre of filly here on her first away-day fixture.

Sure, the handicapper rates her the equal of any of these (in the case of Anshada and January, exactly the same filly) but she will probably need to get down or dirty for the first time here, and who knows if she will blossom or wilt in the fight.

I won’t have a bet in the race but Miss Tonnerre did very well to win over 7f on the July course on her debut, and surely this extra furlong will suit on that initial run-style and pedigree (the dam’s best efforts came over 1m6f in France).

This 300,000 guineas yearling was clearly very raw too on her debut – her trainer deliberately backed off here after that debut win to allow ger to grow and strengthen – so the opening 25s and 18s (though she is a general 16s) is tempting enough.

Well, the most tempting of the current prices, anyway.

3.35pm Doncaster – 28/1 Amigo could be your friend but it’s another tough race to call

Thursday must be being marketed as Ladies’ Day at Donny – these things tend to pass me by, sorry – as we have another fillies-only race in the shape of the Group 2 1m6f+ Park Hill Stakes.

The 3yos have won the last four runnings of this race and the Classic generation are represented by a quartet of females here, though the 4yo Night Sparkle opened up as the early [7/2] favourite on Tuesday, a price that still holds.

That seemed fair enough considering her solid body of work this season (which makes her the highest-rated in here by 1lb) but little more than that.

The official ratings say this is a very tight-knit race though, and maybe tactics could be key. In that respect, maybe returning heroine Sumo Sam could be a fair price at 8s to make all, as she pretty much did in the race last season.

Night Sparkle and Sweet Memories are possible pace rivals, but you’d have thought the lead is James Doyle’s for the taking.

It looks far too trappy for me to get seriously involved but I thought the lowest-rated of the lot (along with Oxford Comma, an unexposed course winner who is the lurker in the pack), Ambiente Amigo, was half-interesting at 28s (25s and 22s is a more general price).

She was ridden with kid gloves after failing to get out in time in a York handicap over an extended 1m2f last time but maybe the step up to 1m6f for the first time will see her improve, and she is a Postponed half-sister to a horse who stayed 2m very well.

But it’s a total guess-up in a nasty little race.

4.10pm Doncaster – 4/1 Harper’s Ferry the one to beat if behaving himself

The boys are allowed out to play in this 1m2f 3yo handicap, and the pace map below suggests Grey Cuban and T’Challa are going to battle it out on the front end.

How long they stay here is anyone’s guess.

ITV will be all over Fox Legacy here after his trainer, Sir Michael Stoute, recently announced that he is set to retire at the end of the season and that one certainly has its chance.

It’s another devilishly difficult race to call this though, especially as the early market seemed to have Harper’s Ferry – the horse that stood out on first inspection – well covered, with 5s the bigger on offer.

Not well enough it seems, as the 5s and [9/2] got taken soon enough, and he is now 4s across the board.

If you were looking to back him, you’d surely have hoped for bigger, as we haven’t seen him since the King Edward VII Stakes in June and he has been gelded since.

And he also seemingly got up put up 5lb for being beaten 16 lengths in that 1m4f Group 2 at Royal Ascot.

However, this is a horse they have always loved, even if he is apparently very tricky – he was well backed before he refused to enter the stalls in the Dee Stakes in June, and his trainer still thinks he is a bit of a handful, even after the cojones came off – and he travelled really well for a long way at Ascot, before maybe his stamina ran out in that higher class of racing.

You strongly suspect that connections feel he is much better than a 93-rated horse, and it is just a matter of whether they have got him back on song. And gelding him may have done the trick.

If it has and he behaves himself – his Windsor novice win in April has also worked out well, too – then he could well be the answer to this.

His trainer also sounded pretty upbeat in his excellent Weekender column this week, saying he is working well and that they are hopeful “he can start to confirm the early promise that had us thinking of him as a possible Derby horse in the spring.”

I really wanted to get with him but I’d want bigger than 4s myself against five last-time-out winners, and other dangerous types, such as Theory Of Tides in first-time blinkers. So a reluctant pass.

Rest of Doncaster card – Graphite no 33/1 chance in the last

Hopefully, the above copy (and the stats and info below) will give you a few successful pointers if you are punting.

I did also have a look at the last three races on the card at Doncaster but only one firm have priced them up at the moment.

Nothing shot out at me anyway, though I certainly would not have made Graphite the 33s outsider of the field in the last at 5.50pm.

That could be worth a small nibble if you can access it (as I will try to shortly) – he has good course form, bumped into one last time and is on a fair mark – but I can hardly tip him with one set of prices to play with. Champagne Prince has to be better than he showed at York last time, so he is a fair alternative at 10s, especially with his stable going much better of late. I’ll probably play him as a saver.

Go well.

BET

Dear Cat win-only at [11/1] in 1.50pm at Doncaster (10s is more generally available in seven places)

GOING AND WEATHER

DONCASTER

Going _ Round course: Good to soft, good in places; Straight course: Good, good to soft in places

Going stick: 6.1 at 8am Thursday

Weather:  Dry, sunny and chilly (15-16 degrees), Course had 5mm on Wednesday.

BALLOTED OUT

None

FIRST-TIME HEADGEAR (all Doncaster races)

PACE MAPS (ITV races)

1.50pm Doncaster: Alice Fairfax (drawn 7), Ghost Run (12), Dear Cat (6), Hackney Diamonds (11), Art Design (15), Skellig Isle (13)

2.25pm Doncaster: Camille Pissarro? (6), Hallasan (9), Seagolazo (12), Intrusively (3); other prominent racers

3.00pm Doncaster (not a lot of evidence to go on): Flight (2)

3.35pm Doncaster:  Sumo Sam (3), Night Sparkle? (7), Sweet Memories? (8)

4.10pm Doncaster: Grey Cuban (2), T’Challa (5)

TRAINERFORM (not including Wednesday’s results)

Excellent: Tom Ward, James Fanshawe

Good: George Scott, Andrew Balding, Brian Meehan, William Haggas, Ed Bethell, Aidan O’Brien, Hugo Palmer, Paul and Oliver Cole, Ralph Beckett, Tom Clover (very good), John and Thady Gosden (maybe more fair), Peter Chapple-Hyam, David Menuisier, Adrian Keatley (two from four of late), Sir Michael Stoute

Fair:  Warren Greatrex, Karl Burke, Michael and David Easterby, Emma Lavelle, George Boughey, Richard Fahey (18-1 winner on Tuesday), Charlie Johnston, Ed Walker, Richard Spencer (borderline good), Jack Jones, Richard Hannon, Ollie Sangster, Jack Channon, Hughie Morrison, James Owen, Owen Burrows, Simon and Ed Crisford, Marco Botti

Moderate:  Kevin Ryan, Charles Hills, Charlie Appleby (for him, anyway), Craig Lidster (maybe harsh assessment), David Loughnane, Gemma Tutty (though a welcome 11-2 winner on Tuesday)