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
Raymond St. Leger Raymond St. Leger Raymond J. St. Leger (born 1957, in London, England) is an American mycologist, entomologist and molecular biologist who currently holds the rank of Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is an advocate of online open education and since 2013 has co-taught with Dr. Tammatha O’Brien a massive open online Coursera course called Genes and the Human Condition. St. Leger has published more than 150 scientific papers and book chapters on fungal pathogens of plants, animals and insects, and on the reactions of hosts to infection. St. Leger