Pears a busy boy but Lass fails to make it a smashing day

Everyone knows what a hard a game racing can be, but Ollie Pears's punishing schedule in the last few days will surely take some beating.

Pears had the likes of Ted Durcan, Timmy Murphy and Luke Harvey in front of him in Doncaster's Leger Legends race on Wednesday and left his North Yorkshire yard in the small hours of Thursday morning to saddle Smashing Lass in the mile nursery.

Speaking before the race, Pears, who split the 317-mile drive with employee Zoe Hume, said: "We had a good run down. We left at 3am and I did the first three hours and Zoe did the last bit; it took us five hours and 40 minutes, but it can be the same if you have a bad run to Ayr.