Ladbrokes St Leger Doncaster: The Saga Part One
St. Leger is even older than two world wars themselves, it dates back to 1776 and thus, it is the oldest of Britain’s five Classics. Not only is it the last of the five runs each year, rather it is also the longest than any of the last four.
The St. Leger Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain which is held for thoroughbred colts and fillies that are three year old. It is run at Doncaster over a distance of 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 132 yards. It is scheduled for September each year.
The Leger completes the season each year, preceded by the 2,000 Guineas Stakes, run over a mile at Newmarket Racecourse and the Epsom Derby, run over 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 10 yards.
There is also a Fillies Triple Crown when a filly gets done with winning 1,000 Guineas Stakes, Epsom Oaks and in the end the St Leger Stakes. Earlier this did not qualify for being a true Triple Crown which is no longer the case now.
In recent decades, the St Leger rarely has a Triple Crown contender as the last one to claim the title was Nijinsky in 1970.
Since the inception of this race, which is nearly a good 150 years, only 15 horses have ever won the English Triple Crown.
Recently, winning a Triple Crown has become a very rare accomplishment as majority of the horses have now specialised on a limited range of distances.
The first ever Leger was won in the year 1776 by Allabaculia and as the legendary event is still held after 235 years.
In 2011, it got taken away by Masked Marvel with jockey William Buick. Thus it became the 235th edition of the Leger.
St Leger 2011 was specifically noted for being tough this time and of course the distance being the longest does not really help the situation. As in each September, the highlight was celebrated with four days of celebrations at Doncaster Racecourse.
Besides racing, each year the festival becomes the hub of the most popular social gatherings in Yorkshire which continues into the evenings after the races.
The prestigious four day event comprised of St Leger Opening Day, Ladies Day, Doncaster Cup Day and finally the Ladbrokes St Leger Day.
This Leger was a field lined for nine runners. The nine fierce competed rigorously and held on to their grips for as long as possible.
However, as always, competitions end with just one man standing and here the one horse standing was Masked Marvel while Brown Panther was the runner up.
Masked Marvel was representing last year’s winning combination of trainer John Gosden and jockey William Buick.
His chances were pretty clear because of the Derby and his performance at the Bahrain Trophy added to his victory's possibilities further.
He was able to prove his stamina at theses occasions, pushing him yet further for being a bright prospect.
Brown Panther is a colt owned by England and Manchester United striker, Michael Owen, who sprinted through the handicaps this season and bestowed the owner with his first Royal Ascot victory in the King George 5 Stakes in June.
The victory turned him into a favourite for the Group 1 German Derby but it turned out to be a quite devastating defeat with Richard Kingscote onboard.
Yet again, Brown Panther got beaten at the Geoffrey Freer Stakes at Newbury just last month, beaten by Leger rival, Census. He went second through the wire with Kieren Fallon onboard. Continued in Part: 2
Third in the row stood Sea Moon, son of Beat Hollow who had till yet just run four races with great potential for improvement.
The upsetting factor for the rest of the contenders as far as Sea Moon is concerned was his victory at the Great Voltigeur Stakes at York’s Ebor and that also by eight lengths. He was ridden by the famous Frenchman, Olivier Peslier at the Leger.
Fourth claim at the Leger was posted by Seville trained by A P O’Brien and jockeyed at the race by J P O’Brien.
He had a second position under his belt to Treasure Beach at the Irish Derby. His breeding, being a son of Galileo out of a Silver Hawk is what set him apart from the rest of the lot as the distance for the Leger should have been the least of his concerns.
The drawback however was his just one accomplishment from his eight career starts with five seconds and a third.
Disappointingly, the determination to win has been lost on him which was a worrisome factor for the connections. On mount was trainer’s teenage son, Joseph.
The father and son-in-law's team entered the Leger with their star, Census, who might be a late developer but spurted progressively during the season.
At the Royal Ascot, he was right behind Brown Panther but was packed with professionalism at Newbury. He even had a momentary touch with Masked Marvel at Newmarket.
The horse is partly owned by actress and model, Elizabeth Hurley, and his trainer, Richard Hannon, considers him to be a future Cup horse. The expectations from this horse by the connections were very high but they have not regretted the horse’s fifth position either. They still consider it to be an achievement anyways.
If it comes to fillies who have won the Leger then in 1992 it was none other than User Friendly who took the title away from the rest.
She being the deep inspiration for this Leger's filly, Blue Bunting, is all set for ‘the filly claim’ again. There have been quite a few fillies that have been close enough to User Friendly but could not really take the spot.
Blue Bunting is already a dual Classic winner and her only defeat of the season remains to be when jockey Frankie Dettori had a bad day at the Epsom Oaks.
Her defeat of Vita Nova in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks underlined her stamina and the only compatible threat was thought to be Blue Moon who came third and crossed Blue Bunting not one but good three positions behind.
Buthelezi managed coming seventh even though he came from one of the most secure backgrounds, being one of the two contenders for trainer John Gosden who has already won the race three times, the most recent one being with Arctic Cosmos, just 12 months back.
Even with that background, he still only has a number of respectable runs in group races but has yet to win outside Handicap Company. He was almost nine lengths behind Census at Newbury.
Genius Beast’s presentation was more of an opportunity for the jockey, Silvestre De Sousa, to prove himself as he was being counted upon to bring around half a stone of improvement out of Genius Beast for him to have a winning chance.
It was nearly an impossibility to fill in the thirteen lengths gap which was set when he was behind Sea Moon in the Great Voltigeur Stakes at York last month. His career high has been winning the ten furlong Group 3 Sandown Classic Trial in April.
Rump at the ninth position was paid for by Godolphin to add her to the line up with the task on setting a solid pace for the stablemate, Blue Bunting, and her race was over pretty soon after the start.
Till next year’s Leger, trainer John Gosden and jockey William Buick get to possess this year’s titles and records with Masked Marvel being the part of history along with his connections.
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