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
William St Leger William St Leger Sir William St Leger (1586 – 2 July 1642) was an Anglo-Irish landowner, official and soldier active in Ireland. He was the son of Sir Warham St Leger (died 1600) and his wife Elizabeth Rothe of Kilkenny, grandson of William St Leger and a great grandson of Anthony St Leger, Lord Deputy of Ireland. He was probably born in County Cork. When he was 14 his father and Hugh Maguire (Lord of Fermanagh) fatally wounded each other in single combat near Cork city. He took part in the Flight of the Earls in 1607, when Hugh O'Neill,