A CHANCE TO BE A PART OF HISTORY

Andy Newton takes a look ahead to the last and most historic of the season's Classics, the St Leger at Doncaster

- Andy Newton

As we head into September, one of the main focuses will be on the last of the English Classics the St Leger - run, as always, at Doncaster and this year staged on Saturday 16th September.

The contest, which was first run in 1776, is the oldest of the five English Classics and with that has a bundle of history to wade through.

Don't worry, I'm not going to go back to the 1700's, but just the last 20 years or so, as there are many key trends to consider once we know the final runners.

Last year, we saw the Roger Varian camp win the St Leger for the second time when their Eldar Eldarov won for jockey David Egan - their other success came in 2014 with Kingston Hill.

While it's also a prize top Irish yard Aidan O'Brien likes to target - the Ballydoyle handler has won the gold medal six times in total and three times since 2013 - and the 'boys in blue' of Godolphin have a fine record too winning the race on seven occasions.

In terms of jockeys, it seems to be a race the cream rises to the top. We've seen Frankie Dettori (2), William Buick (3), Ryan Moore (2) and Andrea Atzeni (2) all win the St Leger twice each since 2008 - while, in total, Dettori has six St Legers to his name and with this year being his last ride in the race can he end on a high? He looks set to ride Gregory for the Gosden team.

The bad news though for Frankie is the winning-most jockey in the race though is Bill Scott, with 9 successes, in the 1800's so he won't be able to reel him in.

Here are some of the key St Leger trends............

Trip Advisor - With the St Leger run over a trip of 1m6f, this is likely to be the first, or only the second, time these Classic generation bunch of 3 year-olds have run over this sort of distance.