It feels like we've been here many times before. An English St Leger winner who has too much pace and class to be pigeonholed as having a future in the Cup events or a mere support act in the showcase middle distance races.
That, however, is how it normally unfolds and will probably do so again with Logician, despite the glass half full brigade predicting differently. Not that no one with racing's interest at heart would wish this.
And while the blessings must be counted that the Doncaster event has not had its soul taken by being modernised into an all aged event, it still has to compete with an increasingly competitive autumn fixture list both here and throughout the rest of Europe.
While one must never say never, with the future of the sport hard to predict, particularly with the blase attitude to making changes to the calendar, Nijinsky (in picture) may still prove to be the last English Triple Crown winner in the sport, even with the present Ballydoyle having a bash out of the blue at it in recent years with Camelot, in addition to eyeing it up when Saxon Warrior looked set to dominate.
In a way it would be fitting for Nijinsky to be the final horse to achieve the feat. For let us not kid ourselves that the purists amongst us really wanted Camelot to join that elusive list. Sounds harsh on a top class juvenile who trained on well and was unbeaten at the point he made the journey to South Yorkshire.
But he was no Nijinsky. He beat a substandard Guineas field, won the Derby most decisively but the runner up needed the benefit of Lasix to later run up a Group 1 tally of wins in the States. There was not much for Camelot to do to win at the Curragh then, unfortunately, not one of the summer all age events were contended.
His defeat in the St Leger by an inferior animal who is so forgetful we may as well just call him thingyo, and who was trained by the soon to be disgraced Mahmood Al Zarooni, is rarely touched upon.
Admittedly it's unsporting to knock a horse whose connections were attempting a feat that we'd given up hope would ever be achieved again, but it would feel right and proper to have this accomplishment achieved by an animal who would be labelled outstanding.
In the aftermath of the defeat, Camelot was well beaten at Longchamp then disappointed when kept in training, although the weights and measures brigade will point out the figures had him reproducing his best form on his first two starts. And despite siring last year's Irish Derby winner he, like some other sons of Montjieu, may fail to truly make the grade as a stallion in the flat sphere.
That again would be unfortunate as it would buck the trend if a horse ran well in the Leger who had been a top class juvenile and turned into a top notch progenitor on the level. Just like Nijinsky did in fact, with his three Epsom Derby winners but plenty of high class animals over shorter.
Another animal who could have emulated Nijinsky proved a huge let down in his limited spell at stud. It's not fanciful to believe that if Reference Point had been trained for the 1987 2,000 Guineas, he would have put in a bold front running performance and went close to winning.
Returning to Logician, if you go back over the past fifty years, you have to go back to the first decade to find the animal that promised to have the most exciting future out of the St Leger winners that remained in training beyond their three year old careers.
That was the grey colt Bruni, who won the Doncaster classic by ten lengths, a memory that was not blighted by his subsequent disappointing performance in the Arc.
Trained by Captain Ryan Price and owned by Charles St George, Bruni received an Annual Timeform rating of 132 , the Halifax organisation billing him as , " one of the most exciting prospects for 1976."
History tells us the he went close to hitting it big in the King George Queen Elizabeth Stakes, despite being handicapped by his newly acquired habit of looking like he wanted to down tools in the early stages. Ten lengths off the pace entering the straight, he made relentless headway to finish a one length runner up to the Wildenstein filly Pawneeese.
That was the highlight of his career beyond three. Connections did revert to the norm when, after keeping Bruni on in training as a five year old, they targeted the Ascot Gold Cup where he ran disappointingly behind the mighty French stayer Sagaro.
Bruni did win Group races at four and five but never fulfilled what many hoped for and some expected. He is perhaps the best example to consider before digesting hopes and hype for winners of the race.
Eight years later Willie Carson drove out the wide margin Epsom Oaks winner and King George third Sun Princess to win the concluding classic. The highest hopes were held for her when she was kept in training but she was a let down.
Maybe we should be judging Logician by looking to two positive examples. When Luca Cumani kept the 1984 winner Commanche Run in training as a four year old he was under no illusion of the potential of Ivan Allan's colt had to shine in the top grade over shorter distances. Remarkably, he even gave him a Lockinge entry, which would be something for true racing eggheads, if they still exist, to touch upon over a pint.
Despite throwing in some below par performances, Commanche Run won the Brigadier Gerard by a wide margin, then later inflicted a famous defeat upon Oh So Sharp in the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup, then notched up his second Group 1 win of the season in the Phoenix Park Irish Champion Stakes.
In more recent times Conduit was also kept on for another year and succeeded where Bruni failed by winning the King George Queen Elizabeth Stakes, albeit in an era when the race was taking a hit quality wise. He also won his second Breeders Cup Turf but his two respectable runs behind Sea The Stars showed him a likeable high class colt, but not an outstanding one.
Let's hope the race is kept in its present format and in the same spot in the calendar but that, from somewhere, it gets a massive boost in kudos. Just maybe, Logician will defy all us miserable put downers and become the dominant middle distance colt of 2020.
image in public domain
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