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The Turf

Robin Oakley

Wednesday, 17th September 2008

Modern classic

What a glorious spectacle it was at Doncaster last Saturday. And no, I don’t mean Frankie Dettori launching himself at Sir Michael Stoute like an exuberant four-year-old vaulting into a parent’s arms for a hug, or even the mildly embarrassed trainer, a bonhomous but stiff-backed bear of a man, wiping off the smacker of a kiss that Frankie gave him later. Those were extra relish. No, I mean the triumph of Conduit, trained by M. Stoute and ridden by F. Dettori, in the last and longest of the English Classics, the 1m 6f St Leger.

For me, St Leger Day at Doncaster is one of the best days out in racing amid one of the liveliest of sporting crowds. But for some years now the St Leger has been the Cinderella Classic. Modern breeding is excessively focused on speed at the expense of stamina, and, some of us suspect, at the expense therefore of the durability of the modern racehorse. The French have succumbed to fashion by trimming the distance of their ‘Derby’ to a mile and a quarter. The US Breeders Cup authorities are this year, absurdly, entitling the mile-and-a-half (Derby-distance) race included on their programme the ‘Breeders’ Cup Marathon’.

Largely because of that mindset, some St Leger fields in recent years have been small and of rather limited quality. The ten furlong Irish Champion Stakes, often run the same weekend, has attracted more publicity and more top-drawer horses, with English and Irish Derby winners more likely to turn out at Leopardstown than on Doncaster’s Town Moor. But its 232nd running, with a field of 14 runners, gave glorious witness that the oldest English Classic can still be both a thrilling spectacle and a contest worth winning.

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