4-1 College backed for St Leger glory
COLLEGE CAUSEWAY, whose likely William Hill St Leger participation was only revealed on Friday, has been the subject of significant early support with the sponsor for the £13,000 stayers’ Classic which starts at Wimbledon on Saturday week.
“We’ve laid him at 6-1 and 5-1 and he’s a loser for £20,000 already,” said Hills’ odds-compiler Ian Magor of Pat Buckley‘s potential Irish raider yesterday. “He’s now 4-1 and we’ve eased Shelbourne Aston and Flying Winner a little as a result.
“When we first put the market up, punters couldn’t get enough of the 5-2 about Lenson Joker and forced our hand into cutting him to 2-1, but after his Yarmouth run the other night I’d be tempted to knock him back out if it wasn’t for the liabilities.
“It’s certainly been a lively market even this far ahead of the competition and has been very worthwhile in putting prices up.”
Meanwhile, Pat Curtin yesterday committed Droopys Arsene to a St Leger tilt after an impressive victory in a heat of the Irish Cambridgeshire over 700 yards at Limerick on Monday, and said a decision about Paddy Power Irish Derby winner Shelbourne Aston’s participation would be made in the middle of next week.
“We’ll sit down on Wednesday or Thursday and make our mind up about Shelbourne Aston,” said Curtin, “he’s in brilliant form and has come out of Shelbourne absolutely bouncing. I am very tempted to go, but there’s quite of bit of interest in him bitches-wise just now so I wouldn’t want anyone to back him at the moment. I’ll definitely send Droopys Arsene over though. He must have gone 10 lengths clear at Limerick and won by six in 38.47sec with Olympic Show in the field.”
Hills had already knocked out Shelbourne Aston a point to 4-1 prior to Curtin’s comments in light of the support for College Causeway, while Droopys Arsene has been introduced into their betting at 25-1.
Meanwhile, Flying Winner, who is 11-2 with Hills to add to her Coral Regency and William Hill TV Trophy titles by taking the Leger, continued her build-up this week when posting 29.87sec in a solo trial over 483m at Doncaster on Tuesday.
Chris Lund’s bitch has been on the easy list after finishing sore in a pre-Yorkshire St Leger trial at the same track last month, but returned with a 16.71sec sprint workout at Sheffield on September 17.
*The £13,000 William Hill St Leger closes to entries at noon on October 7 with first round heats four days later. Second round is on October 17, semis on October 21 and the Sky Sports-televised final on Tuesday, October 28.
Betting
William Hill: 2 Lenson Joker, 4 Colleage Causeway, Shelbourne Aston, 11-2 Flying Winner, 12 Bubbly Totti, 16 Barnfield Loreto, 20 Ballymac Weeshie, Butterbridge Ali, Romeo Turbo, Wise Maldini, 25 Commander Chief, Directors Chair, Droopys Arsene, Swift Jade, 33 bar.
