The St Leger - By Cornelius Lysaght
It’s 185 miles from Kempton Park racecourse, Middlesex to the track at Doncaster, South Yorkshire.
Even further between Kempton’s Mount Bell Novices’ Hurdle over two miles and five furlongs and the oldest, the final and the longest Classic of the flat racing season, the St Leger, staged at Doncaster since 1776.
Roger Varian knows about them both though.
On a February Tuesday in 2000 – fourteen years before training Kingston Hill to win the St Leger – I was at Kempton to see a 25-1 shot named Mister Doon, ridden by R P Varian (7) in stripey silks, recover from a late jumping error to charge home to claim the novices’ hurdle spoils from Haut Cercy.
Richard Johnson, the subsequent champion jockey, was on board the runner-up, and further behind were other notable jockey scalps including the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Jim Culloty – uncle of Oisin Murphy – Mick Fitzgerald, now of ITV and Sky, ‘Stormin’ Norman Williamson, nowadays a prominent figure in the bloodstock world, and none other than Sir Anthony McCoy.
Mister Doon was one of seven winners from seventy eight mounts over three seasons under Rules in Britain and Ireland for Varian, many of them for revered Sussex-based trainer Josh Gifford, before injury in America brought a stop to his career.
When passing the finishing line in front that winter’s day at Kempton it would have been impossible to imagine what was to come: after a decade as assistant and protégé to Newmarket master-trainer Michael Jarvis, he took over the reins aged 32 in 2011 when Jarvis’ health failed.
Since then an already successful and highly-respected operation, based at Kremlin House on Newmarket’s Fordham Road, has gone from strength to strength, and, re-located up the Bury Road at historic Carlburg – previous base of Bruce Hobbs, Michael Jarvis (as private trainer to the businessman David Robinson), Clive Brittain and Simon Crisford – is amongst the most powerful in Europe.
Once again a hard-working but not necessarily headline-grabbing former jump jockey demonstrating that keeping eyes and ears open – during what was perhaps a less frenetic riding career, and containing quieter spells because of lack of opportunities or inevitable injury – can lead to greater things.
On the flat, think Varian, Karl Burke, Tony Carroll, Clive Cox, Richard Fahey, Ger Lyons, Gary Moore, David O’Meara, John Quinn, Kevin Ryan (with apologies to those missed out).
Varian’s Dewhurst and Lockinge successes with Belardo; his Group One-level wins in the yellow and black spotted silks of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid with star names Postponed, Zabeel Prince and Defoe; Eshaada’s Champions Day thriller; and Kingston Hill rate as just some of the highlights so far.
These days, around 200 horses – ten for Opulence Thoroughbreds – are under the care of Varian, supported by his wife Hanako and the Carlburg team, and hopes are high that a second St Leger might come their way courtesy of the lightly raced, last-gasp Queen’s Vase winner Eldar Eldarov which was subsequently fourth over a shorter distance in the Grand Prix de Paris.
The trainer told a pre-Doncaster media event: “I thought his run in the Grand Prix de Paris was a fair performance – he was only getting going as they crossed the line.
“I’d love the ground to be good, good to soft, or a bit of juice in the ground would bring out the best in him.
“Eldar Eldarov has been…unfurnished, but is beginning to flourish, and will be better as a four-year-old and even better as a five-year-old.”
That’s good enough for me.
No St Leger runners for Opulence – yet – but amongst those ten with Team Varian, there is much for which to look out for in the final months of the year including a Muhaarar juvenile named Tyndrum Gold. Fingers crossed for Tyndrum Gold – and for Eldar Eldarov.
