Heavy rain at Doncaster overnight has cast doubt over Aidan O’Brien winning today's Ladbrokes St Leger, even though his horse Idaho has been a short-priced favourite all week. Idaho prefers the going to be good to firm but the forecasters got the weather drastically wrong and the course steward has not ruled out more rain and a change on today’s going.
O’Brien hasn’t won the St Ledger since 2013, after dominating in the earlier years, he would have liked to get the trophy back today with Idaho, but don’t rule him out just yet, this is a big field and he has three runners in the nine running today. Whilst Idaho runs with odds of 4/6 with pretty much all the bookies including William Hill, HousesofParliament runs at 10/1 with Bet365 which for third favourite is good odds. Don’t forget that out of eight starts, he’s had five top places, 2 wins, 2 seconds and 1 third place, that’s no too shabby.
Sword Fighter is O’Brien’s third runner today, again with a great record and if the ground suits this could be a top three place too, O’Brien could potentially get the top three places if the jockeys do their jobs. There’s no Ryan Moore today, but there is Seammie Heffernan, Colm O’Donoghue and Donnacha O'Brien if they get ahead of the field the Ballydoyle team will be ecstatic. Odds on Sword Fighter are 12/1 with Sporting Bet.
The only real contender to upset the Ballydoyle applecart is Andrew Balding’s Muntahaa, placed second favourite by the bookies this morning, out of his five races, he’s always placed, which is some record. But the thing he doesn’t have is a stablemate, These Ballydoyle horses train together and it’s said they train on the best gallops in Europe, so I know where my money would go. But you can’t rule Muntahaa out of the race with the form he’s in. Odds on Muntahaa this morning are 5/1 with Ladbrokes.
This looks like a great race to watch today, but there is plenty of other racing around with cards at Bath, Chester, Lingfield, Musselburgh and Leopardstown in Ireland. There’s also, racing in Australia later at Rosehill and Flemington.
Good Luck today