24 September: The St Leger

On this date in 1776, the first St Leger horse-race took place at Doncaster. 10 facts about the St Leger:

1. The St Leger is the oldest of Britain's five Classic Horse races. It is the last of the five to be run each year, and its distance is longer than any of the other four at 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 115 yards (2,921 metres).
2. The race is open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies.
3. It is named after one Anthony St Leger, an army officer and politician. He was born in Ireland but attended Eton College and served in the British army. He married a woman from Yorkshire and lived on the Park Hill estate in Firbeck, where he later bred and raced horses. From 1768 to 1774, St Leger was MP for Grimsby. He devised the race that would become the St Leger after he left Parliament.
4. It was almost called the Rockingham Stakes after the host of the dinner party where the discussion took place. The Marquess, however, proposed that it should be named after Anthony St Leger instead.
5. The first race was run over a distance of 2 miles and was called "A Sweepstake of 25 Guineas". According to the rules of the time, colts and geldings were to carry 8 st, and fillies would receive an allowance of 2 lb.
6. The winner of the first St Leger didn't have a name. It was a filly owned by the event's organiser, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. The horse was given a name later: Allabaculia.
7. The St Leger forms the last leg of the Triple Crown. Competing colts will have competed in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and the Epsom Derby and the fillies in the 1000 Guineas and the Oaks at the same venues. The UK’s last Triple Crown winner was Nijinsky, back in 1970. The race is a test of stamina, and it's endurance, rather than speed which is the key to victory.
8. The winningest jockey is Bill Scott, who won the race 9 times in the 19th century. The fastest time over the Doncaster course at time of writing was 3m 00.27s, by Logician in 2019.
9. The largest number of runners was 30, in 1825, and the fewest just three in 1917.
10. As the last of the classics, the race marks the end of the English summer. The popular adage "sell in May and go away, come back on St Leger Day" suggests investors should sell their shares in May and buy them back after the race.

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