Doncaster Racecourse its present location and in 1776 Colonel Anthony St. Leger founded a race in which five horses ran. This race has remained in existence and become the world's oldest classic horse race. During the first world war the racecourse was used for military purposes and substitute races were run at Newmarket from 1915 to 1918. Doncaster has the distinction of both starting and ending the flat season on turf. Every September, Doncaster hosts the prestigious four-day William Hill St. Leger Festival, which is acclaimed as the premier sporting occasion of the Autumn calendar. Doncaster has also taken over events whose
Stratford Edward St Leger Stratford Edward St Leger Colonel Stratford Edward St Leger (1867 – 12 October 1935) was an Anglo-Boer War and World War I diarist and artist. St Leger was born in Queenstown, Eastern Cape, South Africa, in 1867 to Frederick York St Leger, the Anglican rector of Queenstown, headmaster of St. Andrew's College, Grahamstown, and later the founder of the "Cape Times". Stratford St Leger received his early schooling at Tonbridge School in England and completed his education at Diocesan College in Rondebosch, Cape Town. He had captained Bishops at cricket and rugby union, after he had completed his schooling he