There’s a low key ending on Town Moor with the Doncaster St Leger Festival 2025 day 4 card more modest than earlier in the week. Sunday, 14 September sees the Yorkshire track round off its four-day fixture with the Group 3 Sceptre Stakes for fillies and mares.
Supporting races on the card include the Leger Legends Race, but that’s something of a novelty and not really a betting proposition for serious punters. In amongst lower grade handicaps, there’s the City Of Doncaster Handicap for three-year-olds also over seven furlongs and an extended 6f sprint open to older horses.
A more relaxed conclusion to the big meeting on Town Moor works for them before next month’s Futurity Trophy tests juvenile stamina. Before all that, however, there are some more Doncaster St Leger Festival 2025 day 4 selections from our horse racing experts. We asked them to focus on the best quality events from the course.
That is where better form lies and the art of studying it is what they mastered. Prices alone on horse racing betting sites can’t tell the full story as value might lie in backing runners each-way. Our experts don’t focus on favourites when they feel there are credible alternatives out there. Combining past performances and odds is the winning formula for them.
For the final time during this busy week for the sport in the British Isles, you can read our experts’ thoughts and analysis on the best races from this card at the Yorkshire track. That means a detailed look at three events in particular as the curtain comes down on another major meeting in the calendar.
Doncaster St Leger Festival 2025 Day 4 Preview for Sunday, 14 September
2:30 – 7f Class 2 City Of Doncaster Handicap (0-100)
Chief among those is Godolphin’s Indian Springs. After just three career starts, he has an opening mark of 96 for Charlie Appleby. It’s the same official rating as God Of War, who has done more to achieve it. Sarab Star is equally lightly-raced and travels a long way up the country from the Jack Channon stable. James Fanshawe runs a couple with the market preferring Back In Black, but Pietro could have more going for him off bottom weight.
Finishing ahead of the former over course and distance during this meeting last season was Spell Master. He’s the pick of two representing Andrew Balding, but saw the Town Moor form reversed when meeting Back In Black again at Newbury. Ralph Beckett’s El Matador was a hard-luck story from Glorious Goodwood and should go better here, provided he doesn’t meet more trouble in-running.
It’s a wide-open, big field where draw bias and further rain could play their part. Up The Pace is the only other course and distance winner in the line-up, but he might find conditions too soft for him. At a big price, The Waco Kid placed on this track and trip in Listed company as a juvenile. Hugo Palmer books 5lb claimer Warren Fentiman to ease the burden of topweight.
3:00 – 6f 111y Class 2 The Classic Bookmaker Handicap (0-105)
NEVER SO BRAVE – Buckingham Palace Stakes (2025) pic.twitter.com/VxnSX3GN7U
— Ascot Racecourse (@Ascot) July 10, 2025
Going back in trip asks a new question of the David O’Meara trained five-year-old, but he’s definitely got another handicap in him off the same mark he ran second in the Buckingham Palace Stakes behind subsequent Group 1 winner Never So Brave. Akkadian Thunder turned past form with Myal around during the Royal meeting and the return here is a plus. William Knight’s Royal Velvet has been pretty consistent of later, but autumn ground poses a new question.
Bunbury Cup fourth Ten Pounds has a lot to do off second topweight, but has more improvement in him than re-opposing Ian Williams runner-up Aalto. Purest Time takes preference from that stable’s pair here after shaping like a stiffer course and slightly further would help him at Goodwood. Purosangue and Aleezdancer have bits and pieces of form that give them claims.
Commanche Falls and Pocklington are prominent in the market with online bookmakers after placed efforts in the Constantine Handicap on Ebor day. Conditions look like being different from the good to firm going from York. Geoff Oldroyd’s sprinters are particularly frustrating to follow with the feeling they often end up with too much to do, based on how they’re ridden.
4:10 – 7f Group 3 Sceptre Fillies’ Stakes
A dead heat in the HKJC @WorldPool Oak Tree Stakes!
A thrilling finish to our £100,000 Group 3 prize as stablemates Saqqara Sands and Tabiti hit the line together in quite an outcome for the @RalphBeckett team pic.twitter.com/pWMzqXw1kf
— Goodwood Racecourse (@Goodwood_Races) July 30, 2025
Karl Burke’s four-year-old daughter of Night Of Thunder has seen one of the dead-heat winners run second in the Group 2 Celebration Mile. Bright Thunder also has the re-opposing fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth from the Oak Tree taking her on again, but none got close to the front three. She also meets Sandown sixth and ratings topper Spiritual off the same terms as the Atalanta Stakes.
John & Thady Gosden’s filly is 3lbs and upwards clear of the field on adjusted figures, but gives weight all-round from Stall 1. If Ollie Sangster has Shuwari fully race-fit, then this could be a good opening for her. She missed all of last season, but landed a Listed race around Longchamp over a mile on her latest start on the comeback trail. Lou Lou’s Gift is out to prove she’s better than a handicap for William Haggas, meanwhile.
Roger Varian’s Jabaara seems better around a bend, but did run a mighty race in defeat when second in the 2024 Group 1 Falmouth Stakes over a Straight Mile at Newmarket last summer. O’Meara has probably been waiting for a bit of soft ground with Sunfall, meanwhile, and she could outrun her odds based on her neck victory over Queen Of Mougins at Ascot last autumn. Beckett does well with his fillies, but neither makes much appeal.
