Hard ground threat to Kingston Hill

Friday 12 September 2014, 8:17am

Trainer Roger Varian has warned St Leger favourite Kingston Hill will not run if the ground is too hard at Doncaster.

The Derby runner-up has drifted slightly in betting as the sun has continued to beat down for the first two days of the meeting.

Although there is no further rain forecast, Varian is hoping the ground does not get any quicker leading into Saturday's Classic.

"I'll be here on Saturday and nothing's changed. If I'm happy with the ground conditions, I'll run and if I'm not, I won't," Varian said.

"I've spoken to Roderick (Duncan, clerk of the course) and he knows my position. It will either be good enough for me to run or it won't.

"We want to run - the likelihood is we're going to run - but we want to be running on decent ground."

Duncan said he was not planning to water the track ahead of the St Leger.

"I want to see the favourite run, but I don't want to see a load of other people not running because I've watered," Duncan said.

"There's not just one race on. There's a lot of horses running and if I adopt a policy that nobody else wants in favour of one horse, it's an impossible position."

If he runs, Kingston Hill will face 13 rivals in the world's oldest Classic.

– PAA

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