THE Betfred St Leger (3.35) might lack a star today.

At the moment there doesn’t seem to be a Hurricane Lane or a Logician ready to deliver. But that is not to say that a horse of that calibre could emerge. A hard-run, extended mile and six furlongs on the Town Moor track, with what seems an endless home straight, lends itself to sorting the wheat from the chaff. But what you can say about today’s St Leger is that it’s very typical.

That said wheat is made up of the usual suspects. Frankie (Arrest) has six Legers. Aidan (Continuous, Alexandroupolis, Tower Of London, Denmark) also has six. John Gosden, now teaming up with son Thady (Arrest and Gregory) has five. The blue of Godolphin has seven, though their sole hope today Chesspiece is provided by a new operation, Simon and Ed Crisford.

The need is for speed these days. The field size of 10 runners is also very typical of the Leger. That has been the average for the last 10 runnings, which is significantly less than the 2000 Guineas (14.5) and Derby (14.6).

You’d have to wonder, if we didn’t have the mega owner-breeders who don’t need to sell their stayers abroad, what would become of this classic, the oldest of the classics.

But we certainly have an intriguing race today. Indeed, you’d find it hard to put a line through any of them, even the rag Denmark, who in his relatively short career, has been called all sorts of names thus far.

It’s mad to think that given the sophistication of the betting markets these days (Tony Keenan writes about this in his column on page 10) that the Frankie factor could still be at play but that appeared to be the case when he chose Arrest for his final Derby ride, despite plenty of known concerns about whether he was up to that test.

We know more about the Juddmonte colt now, that he very much likes a soft surface for one (form on soft or deeper reads 1121) so that is a big consideration as well. But it can’t have been an easy decision to ditch Gregory, and there may be a wry smile from owners of that colt, Wathnan Racing, if he emerges best today when you consider it wasn’t Frankie’s finest hour on him in the Great Voltigeur.

It was Ryan Moore who took full advantage that day on Continuous, and as we saw the Irish Champion Stakes, the Moore/Ballydoyle factor is potentially what the market needs to value most. O’Brien has four in here altogether and you can near guarantee that there will be a sophisticated plan for how they want this race to be run.

Or is Desert Hero set to become the first Royal classic winner since Dunfermline took this contest for the Queen all the way back in 1977? The Royal Ascot scorer and most recently Gordon Stakes winner is fast improving, likes soft ground and could well relish the step up in trip.