Culcor can do it at this level

We’ve arrived at the final day of Doncaster’s St Leger Festival and what a meeting it’s been. On Saturday, it was close but not quite close enough for Frankie Dettori, who was unable to make his last St Leger ride a winning one, much to my delight as Continuous got the job done to secure another winner at the meeting. It’s now time to look ahead to the action on day four.

It really has been a great week at the South Yorkshire venue. We’ve seen some fantastic racing this week, and from a betting point of view, as far as I’m concerned, it’s been another successful meeting. It’s not over yet, though, as we have a further seven races to get stuck into, including a Group 3 race and a Listed contest.

Betting tips for day four of the St Leger Festival

Let’s look ahead to the action on the fourth and final day of the St Leger Festival at Doncaster Racecourse. Can we remain in form and fire in another winner to make it four winning days in a row? Here goes.

14:25 – Betfred City Of Doncaster Handicap

The second race on Sunday’s card at Doncaster will be the Betfred City Of Doncaster Handicap, a Class 2 handicap run over seven furlongs. With several of the runners here yet to be fully exposed, this is an interesting but tricky little race to assess.

Dark Thirty won last time out, but may find this stronger company tough, while Nine Tenths, who comes off the back of a simple novice win for powerful connections, is likely to be hugely popular, as is often the case with young Haggas’ horses.

For my money, though, the bet here is Zouky, who has an eye-catching jockey booking in the form of William Buick. After winning on debut and getting the job done second time out last year, this filly returned to action back in March, first finding handicap company too hot to handle at Lingfield, before struggling to get involved in a Listed contest at Chelmsford next time out.

She then failed to fire on fast ground at York back in June, but returned to form after a 62-day mini break, winning very nicely at Newbury last time out. The softer ground seemed to unlock some improvement on that occasion, and she won as if she had quite a bit in hand, so with a softer surface once again on the menu here, I won’t be surprised if she gets involved at the business end of this. The likely strong pace of this race should aid her running style, while she’s nicely weighted too. With Buick in the saddle, 4/1 is worth taking.

Best bet – Zouky @ 4/1

15:00 – Vickers.Bet Leger Legends Classified Stakes

A interesting and ultimately competitive low grade handicap takes place at 15:00. Now this really is complicated puzzle to put together. We’re talking about inconsistent and unreliable types. After his second at Wolverhampton recently, Oh Herberts Reign is well fancied in the early betting and rightly so. He offers up some of the best recent form and is starting to look well handicapped but is certainly not guaranteed to be in the same mood, after all, he’s not won since 2021.

At slightly bigger odds, David O’Meara’s Culcor catches my eye. To start, the hugely experience Davy Russell, who hasn’t ridden since Aintree back in April, takes a rare foray into flat racing here, which seems a little odd, but is eye-catching nonetheless, even in a legends race where many recently retired jumps jockeys are competing. This horse is one of the more unexposed types in this contest and he hasn’t shown much in six starts on British shores, but on his fourth start for David O’Meara, he ran respectably to finish sixth at Beverley, making late headway. That effort tells me that he ought to suited by the likely stronger pace here, while on his old Irish form, he should enjoy today’s softer ground.

If we look back to his efforts in Ireland back in April, May and June of last year, we can see that he ran several good races on similar ground, ground that he’s not really encountered since switching to Britain. He mixed it with some nice types, some of whom are better than this level, in a few of those Irish races, so if he’s fit and on a going day here, then there’s no reason why he can’t get involved. At odds of 8/1, that’s exactly what I’ll be betting on him to do.