Which races are the best trials for the St. Leger Stakes?

Which races are the best trials for the St. Leger Stakes? Established on Cantley Common, Doncaster in 1776 and moved to its current location, on nearby Town Moor, in 1778, the St. Leger Stakes is the oldest of the five British Classics. Run annually over a distance of 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 115 yards in September, it is also the longest and the latest on the Flat racing calendar. While not an out-and-out test of stamina, the St. Leger Stakes may push three-year-old colts and fillies, many of whom will not have raced beyond a mile and a half, close to, or beyond, their limit of endurance.

Of course, horses mature and strengthen as the season goes by and may have a an abundance of stamina, as yet untested, in their pedigrees, so it does not necessary follow that a horse that has never previously won over an extended mile and three-quarters cannot do so on St. Leger Day. For example, four of the last ten St. Leger winners, namely Kingston Hill (2014), Capri (2017), Kew Gardens (2018) and Hurricane Lane (2021), ran in the Derby, over a mile and a half at Epsom, and Capri and Hurricane Lane went on to win the Irish Derby, over the same distance, at the Curragh.

The second colts’ Classic aside, several other races have proved informative trials for the St. Leger during the past decade. The Queen’s Vase, run over 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 34 yards at Royal Ascot in June, has produced three St. Leger winners, in the form of Leading Light (2013), Kew Gardens (2018) and Eldar Eldarov (2022), all of whom won at the Royal meeting. The latter pair also ran in the Grand Prix de Paris, over a mile and a half at Longchamp, the following month, as did the aforementioned Hurricane Lane. Kew Gardens also finished second in the Great Voltigeur Stakes, also over a mile and half, at York and Logician (2019) won that race en route to further glory in the St. Leger.

How many horses have won the Bunbury Cup more than once?

How many horses have won the Bunbury Cup more than once? Not to be confused with the race of the same name run at Bunbury Racecourse in Western Australia, the Bunbury Cup is a historic, seven-furlong handicap run at Newmarket Racecourse, Suffolk, in the East of England. The race commemorates Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, ‘Perpetual Chairman’ of the Jockey Club and co-founder of the Derby, and has been a fixture of the July Festival at ‘Headquarters’ since 1962.

The intermediate distance of seven furlongs requires a combination of speed and stamina, such that the Bunbury Cup is a specialists’ event, which can attract the same horses year after year. Indeed, in six decades since its inception, the race has produced a total of four multiple winners. The first of them, Mummy’s Pleasure, trained by Patrick Haslam, provided Lester Piggott with the fifth of his record seven winners in 1983 and returned to repeat the dose, under talented apprentice Tyron Williams, in 1984.Piggott retired, for the first time, in 1985, but returned to the saddle in 1990 and went on to complete his septet of Bunbury Cup wins on En Attendant, trained by Ben Hanbury, in 1993 and 1994.

Next up came the most successful horse in the history of the Bunbury Cup, Mine, trained by the recently-retired James Bethell in Middleham, North Yorkshire. In 2002, as a four-year-old, the son of Primo Dominie dead-heated with Capricho, trained by John Akehurst, only for the latter to be disqualifed and placed last following an objection by the Clerk of the Scales. Beaten a short-head in the 2003 renewal, Mine would run in the Bunbury Cup four more times, recording back-to-back victories in 2005 and 2006, before finishing down the field in 2007 and 2008. More recently, Motakhayyel, trained by Richard Hannon Jr., also recorded back-to-back victories in 2020 and 2021.

Did Sun Princess win the Fillies’ Triple Crown?

Did Sun Princess win the Fillies' Triple Crown? Of course, in Britain, the Fillies’ Triple Crown consists of the two Classic races restricted to fillies, namely the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket and the Oaks at Epsom, and the fifth and final Classic of the season, the St. Leger at Doncaster. Sun Princess did not, in fact, win the Fillies’ Triple Crown, but did win both the Oaks and St. Leger.

Owned by Sir Michael Sobell, in whose famous pale blue and yellow colours she raced, trained by

Dick Hern in West Ilsley, Berkshire and ridden, in most of her races, by Willie Carson, Sun Princess was a daughter of Irish Deby winner English Prince out of a dam by French Derby winner Val De Loir. As such, stamina was always likely to be her forte and, after running once, without success, over six furlongs as a juvenile, she made her three-year-old debut in what is now the Fillies’ Trial Stakes, over a mile and a quarter, at Newbury in May, 1983.

Sun Princess was beaten on that occasion, too, but the step up to a mile and a half and beyond proved to be the making of her. As a twice-raced maiden, the filly was sent off 6/1 fourth favourite for the Oaks, behind Alexandrie, Ski Sailing, who had beaten her at Newbury, and Royal Heroine. Nevertheless, what followed was, in the words of commentator Graham Goode, ‘a win, in most convincing and emphatic fashion’. Sun Princess made ground at the top of the hill, took up the running just after halfway and gradually drew further and further clear, eventually winning by a record 12 lengths.

Despite unfavourable soft going, Sun Prince was made 11/8 favourite to win the St. Leger and, while she had to work a good deal harder than in the Oaks, win it she did, by three-quarters of a length from Esprit Du Nord. For the record, the last filly to win the 1,000 Guineas, the Oaks and the St. Leger was Oh So Sharp, owned by Sheikh Mohammed, trained by Henry (later Sir Henry) Cecil and ridden, in all three Triple Crown races, by Steve Cauthen.

In horse racing parlance, what is a ticket?

In horse racing parlance, what is a ticket? Obviously, the word ‘ticket’, in the sense of a piece of paper or cardboard that serves as evidence that the holder is entitled to a certain right, can apply to various items inside and outside the world of horse racing. Indeed, readers of a certain age may nostalgically recall the distinctive, brightly-coloured betting tickets that were handed out by bookmakers in the days before the on-course market became a shadow of its former self.

However, to a racehorse trainer, the word ‘ticket’ has a specific meaning, above and beyond anything to do with betting. A ‘ticket’ is, in fact, a request from a trainer for a horse to be granted special dispensation, by the starter, to be loaded into the starting stalls as late as possible and, preferably, last. Such requests are typically made for horses who are habitually problematic at the start but, once a trainer has picked up three tickets for the same horse, in the interests of safety, the horse must take, and pass, an official stalls test before it is allowed to run again.

A stalls test typically, but not always, takes place at a racecourse, half an hour or so before the first race of the day, and requires a horse to enter the starting stalls with the assistance of a maximum of five stalls handlers – one in front and no more than four behind – and remain there, calm and relaxed, for sixty seconds or more. Failure to do so means that the horse must take the test again, but cannot do so for two weeks; if it fails the test again, it cannot take another test, or race, for six months. A routine blood or urine sample is taken after a stalls test to ensure that the horse has not been adminstered any prohibited substances, such as sedatives, to allow it to pass the test.

1 … 6 7 8 9 10 … 153