Run annually over 1 mile, 6 furlongs and 115 yards on Town Moor, Doncaster in September, the St. Leger Stakes is the final British Classic of the season. The race is open to three-year-old colts and fillies and, as such, forms the final leg of the Triple Crown and the Fillies’ Triple Crown, although the latter has not been won since 1970 and the latter not since 1985.
In the better part of two and a half centuries since the inaugural running of the St. Leger, on Cantley Common, Doncaster on September 24, 1776, a total of 42 fillies have won. However, since the St. Leger returned to Town Moor following World War II, just seven fillies – namely Meld (1955), Cantelo (1959), Dunfermline (1977), Sun Princess (1983), Oh So Sharp (1985), User Friendly (1992) and Simple Verse (2015) – have been victorious. The last named was unusual insofar as she did not contest the Oaks, run over a mile and half at Epsom in late May or early June, whereas the other six fillies all did, and all bar Cantelo won the second fillies’ Classic.
Owned by Qatar Racing Limited, trained by Ralph Beckett, in Kimpton, Hampshire and ridden, for most of her three-year-old campaign, by Andrea Atzeni, Simple Verse was unraced as a juvenile, but made the transition from handicaps to Pattern level when winning the Group 3 Lilly Langtry Stakes at Goodwood in July, 2015, on the sixth career start. She did not race again until the St. Leger, for which she was supplemented, at a cost of £50,000.
At Doncaster, she was sent off 8/1 fourth choice of the seven runners and won by a head in a driving finish, only to be disqualified for causing repeated interference to the eventual runner-up Bondi Beach, the 2/1 joint favourite, trained by Aidan O’Brien. However, her connections appealed the decision and, 11 days after the race, Simple Verse was reinstated by a British Horseracing Authority (BHA) panel.