St Leger Preview: When in doubt, bet without

In life, there's always one thing we could do without. For me it's the one-floor-down neighbour who seemingly can't do without Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. At least a dozen times a day. Then the nighttime comes, when he really hammers it. It might not be so unbearable if he didn't always join in.

Racing, or betting to be more precise, has its own way of dealing with white elephants: the 'betting without' mechanism. If one horse is spoiling it for everyone, like Frankel has (maybe that's his legacy line- Frankel: the horse who spoilt it for everyone), then the rule is to keep calm and carry on betting, pretending he's not there and concentrating on a race within a race, the best of the rest race, through the 'betting without' function. Almost £200,000 was traded on the betting without Frankel market on Betfair in the International at York.

In these heady technological days of Will-i-am concerts on Mars, bionic legs that can go almost as fast as Bolt's, and Quorn, we should have the means to invoke the 'betting without' protocol in life, thus ignoring whatever doesn't suit. Then it struck me that some people already have. Tiger was betting without Elin for a while, Lester Piggott had a spell of betting without tax, Katie Price continues to bet without shame, and Fearne Cotton is betting heavily without much discernable talent.

We're able to bet without Camelot in the St Leger. That race within a race looks the right race to concentrate on, at least for punting, though it feels as if there are in fact several races to be run in one, with several issues of wider significance to resolve. That's the beauty and infatuation of this year's St Leger.

RACE 1, 15:40 Doncaster: Camelot versus the Triple Crown.
This is the headline event and the reason so many people, on and off the track, in and out of Britain, will be fixated on the St Leger, to see if Camelot can take his place in racing history as the sixteenth winner of the Triple Crown, and the first since 1970.

RACE 2, 15:40 Doncaster: The Triple Crown versus extinction.
Make no mistake, the Triple Crown was, and probably still is, on Death Row in Britain as a working concept. Camelot is attempting it because Aidan O'Brien and the Coolmore partners can afford to let him try, due to their unique position of strength as a racing superpower, and the very real possibility is that if it doesn't happen this time it may never happen again. The reason why is race 3...

RACE 3, 15:40 Doncaster: The St Leger versus modernism.
The guilty party for the manslaughter of the Triple Crown is the St Leger and the St Leger alone. Racing and breeding has a very different agenda now to the time when the St Leger was regarded as the singlemost significant race in the calendar, being the gateway to Triple Crown glory. Times have changed, and it looked as if the St Leger's time was up, but Camelot winning would buy it some time as a prestigious race.

RACE 4, 15:40 Doncaster: Two and a half furlongs versus Camelot.
If the St Leger was a mile and a half, there may be no need for the aforementioned races 2 and 3, plus Camelot would be trading at more like 1.2 than 1.51/2, but it isn't, and I for one am glad it isn't, as the trip is what makes the St Leger and, in turn, the Triple Crown. It's the one question Camelot has to answer, but everything about him, from his relaxed demeanour to his pedigree, suggests Camelot will stay. His sire Montjeu has already been responsible for two Leger winners (Scorpion and Masked Marvel), while Camelot's dam, Tarfah, is a half-sister to 14-furlong winner Sistine, and another point to remember is that Aidan O'Brien is very good at training horses for stamina, testified by Derby hopes-turned stayers Yeats, Age of Aquarius, Septimus and Fame And Glory (who's also by Montjeu).

RACE 5, 15:40 Doncaster: The rest versus each other.
This is the one we're interested in. There's not much between them, which can be said with confidence given most have raced against each other enough times, the exceptions being Guarantee and Ursa Major, who come from different backgrounds, lower for the former and Ireland the latter. Of those who've gone head to head previously, it's slightly surprising, to me anyway, that Thomas Chippendale is so big a price, especially compared to Thought Worthy, whom he beat at Royal Ascot, along with stablemate Noble Mission, who's as good a barometer as there is amongst the three-year-olds.

The slowly-run Great Voltigeur, in which he finished fifth (behind Thought Worthy, Main Sequence and Encke), was no use to him, as he raced too freely, but a stronger gallop (assured as the rest will want to test Camelot) and a re-unison with Tom Queally should show Thomas Chippendale in a truer light, and he looks the value play.

At his odds, you only need small stakes, but this year's St Leger is all about big stakes. The stakes are high for Camelot, the Triple Crown and the St Leger itself. This really is the definition of a stakes race.

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