Betfred St Leger Trial Novice Stakes
Doncaster 9th July
“This race was put on to get people talking about the St Leger and after an impressive win, Hatteen has certainly fulfilled that aim”
“The Bird has Flown” were the closing comments of commentator Stewart Machin at Doncaster and that perfectly sums up the performance of HATTEEN to win this St Leger Trial Novice Stakes for PJ McDonald and Andrew Balding. The son of Lope de Vega has been an ongoing project for the Balding team on behalf of Al Shaqab Racing, but his Newbury conqueror Point of Law did plenty for the form when he won the G3 Bahrain Trophy at Newmarket earlier in the day and the step up in distance appeared to bring about a significant amount of improvement in the 3-year-old.
A winning time of 2:29.65 was over 2s faster than the TPD Expected time figure for the race and made this one of the fastest races on the 7 race Doncaster card. Settled in midfield behind the pace, when asked to go and win his race in the Doncaster straight, Hatteen responded readily a late speed figure of 37.86 mph was a clear best as he pulled clear to win by over 4 lengths. To put a little bit of context to those time figures, an average speed figure of 35.8 mph made Hatteen the fastest horse to have run over 1 mile 4 furlongs or further at Doncaster so far this year from a sample of 56 races. If he is going to be a St Leger contender then you may well expect that to be the case, but the subsequent 10 furlong handicap won by the in from Room Fourteen was only 0.67s below the standard with a winners average speed of 35.5 mph. This was a truly run race and it brought out the best in Hatteen, who was stepping up to the 12 furlong distance for the first time. The fast ground has obviously played its part, but this was the best average speed figure recorded by a winner at this distance or beyond in the last 3 years and that can really only be seen as a positive.
His stride profile doesn’t necessarily fit that of a typical St Leger winner. An average stride frequency figure of 2.28 per second (ranked 2nd) was above the 2.18 average recorded by a winner over the St Leger distance and was considerably higher than the 2025 winner Scandinavia recorded last September (2.14). The softer ground may in part account for that, but Hatteen did not drop his stride frequency figure below 2.19 per second at any point in this trial and so there will remain just a small doubt over his stamina and whether he can relax enough to see out the longer trip. Having made that point, I will also counter that he was considerably above the expected average for this course and distance too and as such there are signs that he will see out the distance perfectly well regardless. At 34.6 mph, he had the best run-out speed in the field despite the fact that PJ McDonald knew that he had won the race.
There’s a St Leger entry up for grabs after winning this race and I’m sure his name will appear on the list when it’s published in August. He has earned a chance at a higher level, but before I could make a strong case for him being a contender for the final classic of the year, he will need to prove it in a better class of a race. This was an impressive victory, but it came in novice company and his 5th start in that company. There is no doubt that the horses who ran in the more traditional trial races at Ascot and Newmarket have achieved more on the track and Hatteen is the one who needs to step up to their level. However, this race was put on to get people talking about the St Leger and after an impressive win, Hatteen has certainly fulfilled that aim.