St Leger Preview: Back Wind To The Future

The final field is in for the 2015 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, and it's graduation day for the big contenders. Current favourite is Cannock Chase, who has arrived via the Sir Michael Stoute tried-and-tested route of the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot. It was at that meeting the previous year, in the Tercentenary Stakes, where Cannock Chase beat Postponed, who hasn't looked back since and won the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud on his reappearance. But perhaps the most intriguing of all the declarations is Elite Army, a much-needed flagbearer for Godolphin, and he comes here fresh from Dubai where he took his form to the next level with success in the Group 2 Dubai City of Gold Stakes. A final decision on his jockey is still to be made...  

The historian is a prophet facing backwards. The Greeks had a word- opiso- which meant either behind or in the future, one in the same, a concept arguably better expressed in the last century by legendary British academic A. J. P. Taylor when he said "men see the past when they peer into the future".

As racing prophets, for racing profits, we do it almost subconsciously: looking at past patterns in a present context to predict a future outcome. It's all Greek to me, a Taylor's dummy, but, following their lead, perhaps it's not such a leap to apply some opiso to the received structure and bring future context to a past outcome for a present pattern.

It's easy in retrospect to point to some form, or some horse, to explain a St Leger winner. For example, for five years running, from 2005 to 2009, the following year's King George was Trevor Eve in Waking the Dead, shedding reflective light and truth on a case that had closed in Doncaster some 10 months earlier. Organic aftertiming, in its way.

With the benefit of hindsight, Mastery's mastery, in the 2009 St Leger, was calculable when you think that he'd crossed swords with Harbinger, 11-length winner of next year's King George, and 8/1 was a big price for Conduit in the 2008 St Leger in light of the fact he was 13/8 when following up in the 2009 King George. Papal Bull running Duke of Marmalade so close did a better job of authenticating the previous year's St Leger than Lucarno managed himself at Ascot, though that he ended up there is telling in itself. Sixties Icon was closely matched with Dylan Thomas from the 2006 Derby, so their subsequent wins at Doncaster and Ascot respectively were related contingencies, and the same goes for Scorpion and Hurricane Run, first and second in the Irish Derby before finishing first and first in the 2005 Leger and 2006 King George.      

Yes, there's an element of 'good horses run in good races' shocker, but the point, if there is one, is that the three-year-old form lines are only truly validated in the fullness of time, and latching onto the best ones now, in the present, can put a more positive spin on certain horses, thereby providing a potential edge. Think of it as antiquing: the act of identifying something whose real value could be dormant dynamite.   

That's the theory with Windshear, anyway. It's conceivable that one or several of the bolded horses in my fanciful King George will indeed make it all the way to Ascot on Saturday 25th July 2015, by which time we'll see Windshear for what he really was and is, if he hasn't shown it already himself on Saturday, because his form is tied in with all three, directly in the case of Cannock Chase and Elite Army and collaterally with Postponed, including through Snow Sky, who Windshear would have beaten with a clear run in the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood.      

Not brothers, but certainly righteous, Messrs Medley and Hatfield were at least half right when they suggested that time goes by so slowly (no) and time can do so much (yes), with time in the process of doing so much to show that Windshear faced an impossible task when finishing second, giving weight, to Cannock Chase and Elite Army in handicaps at Newbury and Royal Ascot. If they, along with Postponed, are on a career trajectory to the King George, then we have to take Windshear seriously. More seriously.

This is, of course, a specious argument, because if Australia stays in training then he's the likeliest favourite and winner of the King George - just as he's the likeliest favourite and winner of the Arc if pointed to Longchamp next month - and, by the same projection principle, Kingston Hill is brought into even sharper focus. But we're dealing in market forces, and the market forces us to look elsewhere, as the Australia-influenced knowledge of Kingston Hill's ability is well and truly built into his price. Whereas Windshear is still somewhat under the radar, despite his form and, moreover, his would-be form, by proxy of some potential top-notchers that are tattooed with Windshear-inflicted battle scars.

Why it's significant that Windshear's rating could and maybe should be higher is that it answers in more affirmative terms the first of the St Leger two-part question, the second of which he promises to be top of the class in. We're talking stamina.

Hurricane Run, the aforementioned back-reference for Scorpion, has never had a representative in the St Leger, rather surprising given that it's very much his stamping/stomping ground. In truth, Hurricane Run's stud career has been underwhelming so far, but the common denominator of the pick of his stock is staying power. Of his six highest-rated offspring, four- Memphis Tennessee, Barbican, Angel Gabrial and Hurricane Higgins - did their best work at trips in excess of a mile and a half and the other two may do more to raise his profile as they go up in trip this weekend, Ectot trialing on his way to the Arc, and Windshear in the St Leger.

It's not just his sire, either, as the dam's side of Windshear's pedigree also shouts stamina, out of Lancashire Oaks-placed Portal, whose first and only previous foal was the two-mile winner Porcini. On the Timeform scale, it takes a performance in the mid-120s to win an average St Leger. Windshear is rated 118, but with the trip-trigger putting extra on top of the extra on top from the form tardis, and he's just about there, isn't he? Not exactly watertight, but this game never is, part of its beauty and the reason why there are 50 racing prophets for every historian.

Hypothesizing on the King George, a race not run for another 10 months, as a way into the St Leger may be paralysis by analysis, or dejection by projection in this case, but sometimes in life you've got to go back to look forward, and every now and then in racing you've got to look forward to go back, to go back Windshear on Saturday.

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