What were the largest, and smallest, fields ever assembled for the St. Leger?

Run annually, over an extended mile and three-quarters on Town Moor, Doncaster in South Yorkshire, in September, the St. Leger is the oldest of the British Classic races. The race was inaugurated, as a two-mile event for three-year-old colts and fillies, on a course incorporatung part of Cantley Common, on September 24, 1776. Two years later, it was transferred to its present location and named after its founder, Colonel (later Major-General) Anthony St. Leger, a former Member of Parliament for the constituency of Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire.

The St. Leger Stakes was contested over two miles until 1814 – five years after the inauguration of the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket – and, nowadays, along with the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby constitutes the so-called English Triple Crown. The modern incarnation of the St. Leger has a safety limit of 20, but it was not always that way and, in 1830, Memnon, trained by Richard Shepherd and ridden by William “Glorious Bill” Scott, easily justified favouritism when beating 29 rivals by three lengths.

By contrast, the smallest field ever assembled for the St. Leger Stakes was just three. Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the race was run, as the “September Stakes” on the Rowley Mile Course at Newmarket. In 1917, Gay Grusader, trained by the “Wizard of Manton”, Alec Taylor Jr. and ridden by Steve Donoghue, was sent off at prohibitive odds of 2/11 and easily dispatched his two rivals to win a wartime version of the aforementioned Triple Crown.