Racing judge and paddock scout Dave Massey is for the feature day of Doncaster’s St Leger Meeting 2025, tackling the fiendish handicaps on Town Moor. Read below for his exclusive preview, each and every day this week for kwiff.
St Leger Meeting 2025: Doncaster Day 3 Best Bets
St Leger Meeting 2025: Isla Kai (Doncaster, 1.15)
I ought to have more of an opinion on this 1m handicap than I do, to be honest, and there’s nothing at this stage leaping off the page at me. In fact, this is made worse by the absence of any pacemaker that I can find, and this has the potential to turn into a sprint rather than a mile handicap.
Isla Kai (1.15) shaped well enough after a very long absence (two years, in fact) when midfield behind Hickory at Ascot last week, far from disgraced given the time off and shaping well enough to think the engine was still pretty much intact. This is a quick enough turnaround but he did win second time up last year after an absence of 176 days, and has won after a 9-day turnaround before. This isn’t quite the same scenario, and the old “bounce” factor could come into consideration, but he’s potentially well drawn in stall 15 and will love any cut there is in the ground.
St Leger Meeting 2025: Gewan (Doncaster, 1.50)
Have to be with Gewan (1.50) of the front pair here. I absolutely loved him at York, despite some greenness and I wondered whether he might just find it all a bit too much but there were no such concerns and he ran out a ready length and a half winner from Italy, who was merely closing up a bit from the back having never really looked the winner.
Given his size, I don’t think he’ll have any issue with slower ground, indeed he might actually improve a bit for it, and his dam Grey Mystere certainly didn’t mind slower ground. Oxagon isn’t going to be a pushover, though. An eight-length winner at Sandown last time out (good time figure, second successful at Kempton next time out), he’s likely to provide Gewan with a target to aim at and will be dangerous if allowed to set his own fractions.
St Leger Meeting 2025: Jordan Electrics (Doncaster, 2.25)
It probably won’t come as any surprise that Jordan Electrics (2.25) heads up my shortlist for the Portland. He looked on the way back to form when finishing midfield in the Stewards Cup and I fancied him to run a big race next time out at York, but he ran below form, for all he was slightly hampered two out, and it was a little disappointing, all in all.
However, a quick turnaround later in the week at York saw the real Jordan Electrics turn up; he tanked along up front and looked a much happier horse before giving way late in the day, beaten a length. Thoughts immediately turned to the Ayr Gold Cup and this, a race Jim Goldie has won two out of the last three years, and Jordan Electrics high draw is no burden based on American Affair’s win from stall 22.
St Leger Meeting 2025: Square D’Alboni (Doncaster, 4.50)
It’s been a below-par season for Square D’Alboni (4.50) after an excellent juvenile campaign, but perhaps he’s found 12f too far a couple of times this year, but his effort in the Glasgow Stakes at Hamilton between the pair indicated he still had ability; the handicapper has dropped him 8lb since the start of the year and this is his easiest task of the season so far, and Ralph Beckett continues in great form; not impossible he bounces back to form today.
By Dave Massey
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