St Leger

Ante-post favourite Scandinavia (Justify) and dual Derby hero Lambourn (Australia) headline eight confirmations for Saturday's G1 Betfred St Leger at Doncaster. The pair are both trained by Aidan O'Brien, who is responsible for half of the possible runners in the final Classic of the season, with Stay True (Galileo) and likely outsider Saratoga (Camelot) also featuring. Scandinavia will be back against his own age group on Town Moor, after beating his older rivals in the G1 Goodwood Cup last time, while Lambourn needs to bounce back from a below-par display...

Derby runner-up Lazy Griff has been ruled out of next week's G1 Betfred St Leger at Doncaster after suffering a setback. Last seen finishing third in the G1 Irish Derby at the Curragh, the son of Protectionist was a 4/1 shot with the sponsors to provide owners Middleham Park Racing with a first British Classic success on Town Moor, but those dreams have now been dashed. "He's met with a setback," confirmed Middleham Park's Mike Prince. "He was due to do his last piece of work before the Leger on...

Owners Middleham Park Racing will have to play the waiting game before firming up riding arrangements for St Leger contender Lazy Griff, with Christophe Soumillon now heading to Leopardstown to deputise for the injured Ryan Moore aboard some of Ballydoyle's leading lights. Soumillon, who was in the saddle when the son of Protectionist filled the runner-up spot in the Derby at Epsom, had been lined up for the ride, but connections have been forced into a rethink as a result of the Belgian-born jockey's recent change in circumstances. William Buick...

DEAUVILLE, FRANCE -- One of the happiest men at Arqana on Saturday was a Tatts man. Yep, you read that right.  Tattersalls' marketing director Jason Singh contemplated leaving Deauville early in order to watch his syndicate horse Furthur in action but, having stayed put, he yelled the horse home from the Arqana sales complex instead. The son of Waldgeist, trained by Andrew Balding, claimed Newbury's G3 Geoffrey Freer Stakes by three lengths to ignite a Classic dream for Singh and his band of Merry Pranksters who own the horse. Furthur...

The five Classic races staged in the UK - the oldest of their kind in the world - are being branded the Betfred British Classics in an agreement between sponsor Betfred, The Jockey Club and Arena Racing Company (ARC). The newly created logo and title will be "used to help to educate racing and sports fans about each of the races' rich history and backstories". This year, Betfred has stepped in as sponsor of the first two Classics of the season, Newmarket's 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas, following the end...

It's the Leger Lowdown, our final run-through of Classic contenders for the season and one in which the late Galileo (Ire) has three chances to notch his 101st Group/Grade 1 winner so soon after Content (Ire) brought up his century in the Yorkshire Oaks. He is the sire of the first three favourites in the betting at the time of writing, and paternal grandsire of the next two.  It was the St Leger which provided Galileo with his first British Classic winner, Sixties Icon (GB), and we should have guessed...

In the 1960s British racing had the chance to own bookmaking. But it's happening the other way round. Bookmakers are moving closer to owning racing. Betfred's headline sponsorship of all five Classics - the 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas, Derby, Oaks and St Leger - from 2025 is manna to racecourse execs whose job it is to find backers for marquee events. With the Qatar-owned Qipco stepping back from sponsorship of the Guineas meeting and King George at Ascot from next year (they're maintaining their support for Champions Day), the prestige...

Betfred will be the new sponsor of Newmarket's 2,000 Guineas and 1,000 Guineas from 2025 onwards, it was announced on Thursday. The multi-year agreement means the bookmaker will become the first brand to sponsor all five of Britain's Classics--the others being the Betfred Oaks and Betfred Derby at Epsom and Doncaster's Betfred St Leger--at the same time. To mark their sponsorship of the prestigious contests, Betfred have also announced that a £2-million bonus will be on offer to connections of any horse who completes the 'Betfred Triple Crown' by winning...

The St Leger winner Continuous (Jpn), a son of the late Shadai stallion Heart's Cry (Jpn), is set to return to the land of his birth to take on Equinox (Jpn) (Kitasan Black {Jpn}) in the Japan Cup on November 26. Fifth in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe after his Classic success, the colt missed Saturday's Champion S. with a raised temperature. "But he's back fine, he's back cantering again, so the plan with him is to go to the Japan Cup," said trainer Aidan O'Brien on Racing TV. ...

The Corinthian quest is finding life tough. These days romance is run off its legs by finance. Victory for Continuous in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, though, 15 days after his St Leger win, would make history of the most reassuring kind. Each week frontiers in sport are crossed: stats shredded, records set, barriers smashed. With every new 'first' the surviving 'nevers' gain mystique. Racing still has a few. No horse has won the St Leger and the Arc in the same season. It was hard enough already with...

With a royal audience, Continuous (Jpn) became the seventh winner of the St Leger for Aidan O'Brien, relegating the King and Queen's runner Desert Hero (GB) to third, just as Pour Moi (Ire) had done in the Derby with Carlton House back in 2011 in front of the late Queen. There were plenty of strands to an enthralling St Leger that would have made for good storylines: two of those, victory for Desert Hero with his owners present on Town Moor, or a final British Classic for Frankie Dettori, may...

In 2017 and 2018, Aidan O'Brien won both the St Leger and Irish St Leger, first with Capri (Ire) and Order Of St George (Ire), and the following year with Kew Gardens (Ire) and Flag Of Honour (Ire). Given the dominance of both the trainer and his not-so-secret weapon Galileo (Ire), it has perhaps passed beyond being remarkable that all four of those horses are by the late former champion sire, but it is worth noting nonetheless. This year, William Haggas will attempt to pull off that same staying Classic...