Racing: Hills hits out at the Leger after thrills of Three D

For a long time yesterday, after they had let us enjoy the floral canopies of Doncaster In Bloom, it appeared the locals were going to allow visitors the gift most preferred in the Ridings, precisely nowt.

Tim Easterby collected the first two trophies of the 226th St Leger meeting for the short transportation to Great Habton, while the big betting race of the day, the Portland Handicap, also went a little further north to the Hambleton yard near Thirsk run by Kevin Ryan.

It took the south's biggest hitter, Barry Hills, the leading trainer at this meeting for the last five years, to run in and grab something from the blaze. His Alexander Three D won the Park Hill Stakes, the fillies' St Leger, and the Lambourn trainer rather wishes he had put her in the big one on Saturday.

The reason for this belief is unlikely to have Hills co-opted on to the promotions board for the world's oldest Classic. "It's a terrible race, the worst St Leger I've ever seen in my life," he said. "And I've seen a few."

Hills is even contemplating putting his horse where his mouth is and allowing his 50-1 shot Lady's Secret, the rank outsider of the Leger entries, to take her chance, especially if the rains arrive on Town Moor.

Before then, though, he can bathe in the aftermath of Alexander Three D, who appeared an improved and potent force in the Park Hill. "She did everything right," Michael Hills, his son, the jockey, reported. "She went round on the bridle and quickened up like a good filly."

The options have now multiplied, to include the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe weekend and the E P Taylor Stakes in Toronto. The latter, at Woodbine, should be the poetic choice after yesterday's success in a Rothmans Royals sponsored event.

Before that it had been all Yorkshire, notably through Easterby, for whom the cliché of the gritty and bluff tyke might have been created. You could never accuse Easterby jnr of being a bad loser as he is just as stony in victory as in defeat.

It is a much practised trick as the trainer now has 67 wins this campaign and yesterday's success in the St Leger auction house race with Somnus took him close to both £900,000 in prize-money and the top 10 in the trainers' championship.

The cymbals were hardly crashing for Somnus's previous big day in these parts, when he was sold for just 13,500gns just over the road at last year's sales. He certainly came out of the value basket as yesterday's first prize was over £110,000.

Plenty of work has gone into Somnus, and his juvenile bad behaviour can be gauged by the fact he is already a gelding. There was no doubting his resolution yesterday, though, as the two-year-old poked his head in front of the joint-favourite Mister Links close home. The win provided a direct hit for Easterby after near-misses in the race with Jemima and Flanders.

The 142-1 double had been ignited by another strong-finisher in Golden Nun, who could take in next week's Firth of Clyde Stakes at Ayr. There was a sales significance to this result also as her Danzero half-brother was due to come under the hammer at last night's sales.

Halmahera, the Portland Handicap winner, has been through the ring himself, and the 40,000gns he cost at Newmarket's Horses in Training Sale last October was beginning to look a little speculative until he too burst through close home.

The seven-year-old had not won since 1999, but there have been flickers along the way in the leading handicaps. "At last our faith has been proved right," Kevin Ryan, the trainer, said. "He's been called a lot of names, but I've never once doubted. It was going to happen for him and it happened today, thank God.

"Now he's gone and done it I'm sure it won't be long before he's back in the winners' enclosure." Proof of that may come in the Ayr Gold Cup, for which Halmahera is 10-1 favourite with William Hill, though 14-1 is freely available elsewhere.