Where do you start with 250 years of history? 

It was a question posed by Tony Barber and is one that he has done his best to answer in his role as ‘unofficial historian’ of the St Leger.

Although a Doncaster native, it was a trip to Hay-on-Wye, famous for its bookshops and literary festival, that really sparked the idea of delving into the race’s history and the festival in general. 

“I saw this print of Doncaster [Racecourse] in 1874, which was really nice so I bought it,” Tony recalls. “I thought I’d get a book and read about the St Leger but after visiting the archives and the library, saw there was nothing much in evidence.”

As a former history teacher and research buff, Tony decided to put together a research paper on the history of the St Leger Festival but he found that his estimated two to three-month timescale was overly ambitious. 

“I took more than ten years,” he laughs. “Once I start a project, I find it difficult to put down. I got caught up in it.”

The culmination of his project was a 500-page book entitled The St Leger: A History of the World’s First Classic Horse Race, which was published by Raceform, the book publishing arm of the Racing Post, in 2016. The book, now no longer in print – and very hard to get hold of – has become the unofficial history of the event and Tony is often the go-to person when it comes to speaking about the legacy of the event and the many stories that litter its 250 years. 

Tony, who grew up in Edlington, Doncaster, described his research and the evidence he found like ‘confetti’ – he found himself showered with information and stories that had never been told. 

The St Leger Stakes’ origins can be traced back to 1776 when it was run as a subscription race with no name. The moniker didn’t come until two years later.

“The big player at Doncaster was the Marquess of Rockingham from Wentworth and one of his friends and associates was Anthony St Leger,” Tony explains. “The practice at that time, because there weren’t that many horses around, was to run heats. Horses would run four heats of four miles – that’s 16 miles a day. St Leger suggested a short race of just two miles.” 

Through his research, Tony found, with some certainty, that in 1778 at a meeting at Doncaster’s Red Lion Inn that the Marquess suggested that the race should be named after its creator – St Leger. And so the St Leger Stakes was born.

At a similar time, The Oaks (1778) and The Derby (1779) came into being at Epsom with the 2000 Guineas (1809) and 1000 Guineas (1814) following at Newmarket and thus the Triple Crown was born. 

A colt that wins The Derby and 2000 Guineas can win the Triple Crown by winning the St Leger, whilst a filly who wins the 1000 Guineas and The Oaks can also go on to win the St Leger and the Triple Crown. It is seen as a major achievement in horse racing.

There have been 12 colts that have completed this feat by winning the St Leger, with Nijinsky being the most recent in 1970, ridden by Lester Piggott, often considered to be the greatest horseman. The last filly to win the Triple Crown was Oh So Sharp in 1985.

“There’s a sense that there have been great horses but they’ve been great over one distance, like Frankel,” states Tony. “Whereas the greatest achievement is to win at a mile, a mile and a half and then at the St Leger, a mile and three-quarters. To win over the three distances is the real jewel in the crown.”

One jockey that runs Lester Piggott close to the title of ‘greatest horseman’ is Fred Archer, a celebrity of the 19th century.

“By the time he was 29, he had won 13 jockey championships,” says Tony. “He was the only one that was compared with Piggott. They called Fred Archer ‘The Tin Man’ – tin, in the 19th century being money. He was a ruthless performer. His last Classic winner was Ormonde, in 1886, but shortly afterwards he committed suicide – the revolver he used is still in the National Horseracing Museum at Newmarket.”

Another character that helped define racing at that time was Lord George Bentinck, the brother of the 5th Duke of Portland. In the early part of the 19th century, horses would be walked to the racecourse and often set off two weeks beforehand. Obsessed with racing, Lord Bentinck put his horse in a van, or wagon, and brought it to Doncaster from Goodwood. 

“The touts had seen it a week or two before and said ‘they’ll never get it to Doncaster by walking it’ so extended the odds,” recalls Tony. “Then this horse, Elis, arrived at the Turf Tavern, unloaded, and won.”

This revolutionary way of transporting the horse was superseded very quickly by the advent of the railways.

Billy Kimber is someone else with long links to Doncaster Racecourse and was a regular visitor during the early part of the 20th century.

“Billy Kimber was the leader of the Peaky Blinders,” explains Tony. “He came up to Doncaster because the Birmingham Boys were unusual in extending their influence beyond the city, whereas most of the gangs kept to themselves.

“They wanted control of the northern racecourses at the time of the Turf Wars in the 1920s. They took on the Sabini gang from London and apparently they met in the waiting room at Doncaster Station. In the end, the Sabini boys went back peacefully.”

The royals have always had long links with horse racing and with Doncaster. 

“The first was George IV, he was still Prince Regent and came in 1806,” says Tony. “He came with his friend Henry Mellish from Blyth Hall – he was known as a ‘plunger’ which basically means he will get into his 20s and 30s and waste all his money, drink himself silly and then die at an early age – and he did.

“They would go back to Blyth and have bets, £10,000 a time, on throwing plum pudding at the ceiling [to see if it would stick]. They came with the future William IV, George’s brother, and they played a prank where they locked him in Doncaster prison.” 

Most recently, Her Majesty, the late Queen Elizabeth II, was perhaps the best-known royal to visit and often would bring guests, as Tony explains: “In 1953 she brought with her a man who was celebrating his 45th wedding anniversary, Winston Churchill. He was in the Royal Box and times were very different, they were patriotic times. He took out one of his trademark cigars and lit it and the whole crowd just erupted.”

Other famous visitors over the years included Charlie Chaplin, Rita Hayworth, Bing Crosby and Charles Dickens, who visited in 1857 with his fellow author, Wilkie Collins. During their time in Doncaster, and with much puzzlement, the writers would often here the phrase ‘what’s John Scott got in the race?’ in a harsh Yorkshire accent. 

“John Scott was an incredibly successful Malton trainer who had a brother, William, who was a jockey and together they broke the records,” says Tony. “It was a record-breaking nine St Leger winners [between 1821-1846] for William, which was almmost equalled by Lester Piggott (eight wins). John had 41 Classic winners and an unequalled 16 at the St Leger (1827-62), far more than Aidan O’Brien.”

There are far too many stories to mention that add further colour and character to a race that has stood the test of time. Discovering much of this history was a real passion project for Tony Barber and one he is proud to have completed. 

And if you need any more stories, you know where to go…