Doncaster Opens the St Leger Festival

Town Moor begins four days of Pattern-heavy Flat racing this afternoon, with eight races from 13:15 and £485,821 on offer — comfortably the day's most valuable card. The meeting runs to Sunday and builds towards Saturday's Group 1 St Leger, which reaches its 250th running this year. Today is the fillies' day, with two Group 2 contests and a two-year-old conditions race worth more than either of them.

Going is recorded as good to soft across the card. Reports before racing suggested little rain was expected through the week, so the ground may well be drying as the festival progresses; horses with an obvious preference for cut are arguably better served today than on Saturday. After a long, dry summer, plenty of these runners have never encountered an easy surface.

Park Hill Fillies' Stakes, 15:00

Nine go to post for the Group 2 over 1m 6f 115y, a race first run in 1839 and a genuine test of stamina at the trip. Last year's winner Santorini Star is absent, which leaves the runner-up, Sir Mark Prescott's Consent, as the only Group 1 winner in the field; she beat that rival next time in the Prix de Royallieu at ParisLongchamp when rain had come. Prescott has pointed to an improved effort at Goodwood last month as evidence she is coming back to her best, though her season has been a stop-start one.

Owen Burrows runs Waardah, beaten a quarter of a length into third in the Lillie Langtry with Consent fourth, and his comments before the race made clear he has been waiting on softer ground. She wears a hood for the first time. Danielle, for John and Thady Gosden with William Buick riding, has winning course form and was fourth in this last year, but was well held at Goodwood on her latest start.

The rest is varied. Fairy Glen, the Crisfords' Dubai Gold Cup winner, returns from a long break having been second in the Prix Vicomtesse Vigier in May, which is the sort of profile a fourteen-furlong Group 2 rarely forgives. Prizeland takes the Galtres at York into the race for Andrew Balding and Oisin Murphy, while the Irish challenge comes from Aidan O'Brien's Lingfield Oaks Trial winner Cameo, Joseph O'Brien's Nyra and Johnny Murtagh's Floresta. David O'Meara's Ryka completes the field. With no obvious front-runner among them, a modest early gallop and a scramble up Doncaster's long straight looks the likely shape.

May Hill Stakes, 15:35

Eleven juvenile fillies over a straight mile, and the market centres on Charlie Appleby's unbeaten Musical Times, who beat Scommessa Sicura on debut at Newmarket before following up at Yarmouth. Scommessa Sicura has been first or second in all five starts and was beaten a neck by another Appleby juvenile at Salisbury, so the two form lines are tangled rather than settled.

Jim Bolger, successful here in 2015, sends Sea Of Rain, who produced a career best when accounting for Joseph O'Brien's re-opposing Ballyskeagh in a Curragh Group 3 and has since been bought by Newtown Anner Stud. Her connections expect the mile and good to soft to suit, and she is drawn towards the middle. Brian Meehan's Tall Trees, the Gosdens' Beguiled and Eve Johnson Houghton's Prestige Stakes runner-up Eabha all have claims on a step up in trip, while Prescott's Martinet carries a stated doubt about the ground.

Weatherbys £300,000 2-Y-O Stakes, 13:50

Seventeen runners over 6f 111y for the richest prize on the card at £201,979. Night In Vegas is the one with the highest achievement to date, having been fifth in the Coventry before landing the Somerville Auction Stakes from Super Sprint winner Zigazig Ah, though this is a quicker turnaround than he has been asked for previously. Dorigo ran respectably in Listed company at York. A field of that size on ease in the ground makes the draw and the ability to get a clear run more than incidental.

Elsewhere

Laytown stages Ireland's only beach fixture under Horse Racing Ireland's rules, six races from 16:39 on a seven-furlong strand course, with the whole programme dictated by the receding tide. The meeting dates to 1868 and stalls have been used since 2015. Epsom, Lingfield and Worcester make up the rest of the day.

Today's Selection

Our selection is American Empire, trained by Donald McCain and ridden by the amateur Mr Theo Gillard, in the 17:05 handicap hurdle at Worcester — the second division, over 2m 4f on good ground with nine runners, and 7.0 in the morning. A small field in a low-grade division tends to be a tactical affair, and jumping economy over ten flights will matter as much as raw ability.

Today’s free selection

Today's free selection is American Empire (Donald McCain), number 2 in the 17:05 at Worcester.

This is our strongest selection of the day: every measure we track points the same way.

The race is the CopyBet BOG Now For Doncaster Tomorrow Handicap Hurdle (Div 2) (Class G) over 2m 4f on good ground with 9 runners.

Morning price 7.00. Our rated price is 7.42.

We have 17 further selections on today's card, reserved for subscribers.

Market movers

Overnight price to this morning.

Where the money went overnight. Information, not advice — a shortening price means the market changed its mind, not that the bet became a good one.

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