ST. LEGER RESULT

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 62, 10 September 1936, Page 11

ST. LEGER RESULT

BOSWELL'S SURPRISE

United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph— C6pytlelil. (Received September 10, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, September 9. On the second day of the Doncaster September Meeting the following was the result Of the

ST. LEGER STAKES, a sweepstake with £4000 added; second 10 per cent, and third 5 per cent, of the whole stakes; for three-year-old entire colts, and fillies; St; Leger: course, lj miles and 132 yards. W.. Woodward's b c Boswell, by Bosworth—Flying Gal 11, 9.0 .. 1 A.. Gordon Smith's ; br c Fearless Fok, by Foxlaw?—Molly Adare, 9.0 2 H.H. Aga Khan's gr or m c Mahmoud, by • Blenheim—Mali Mahal, 9.0 ...,.- 3

Thirteen started, an. .additional scratching being Plaster Cast.

Won by three-quarters of a length, with three, lengths between second and third. Winner trained by Captain C. Boyd-Rochfort. ;

Boswell's success in the 161 st race for the St. Legel would be a complete I surprise, because not a single English writer had thought fit even to mention him as a prospect in recent weeks. Boswell started three times as a two-year-old, being third at his second.start, and then winning the Hurst Two-Year-Old Stakes, 6 furlongs, from Veuve Clicquot and Noble King. He did not contest the Two Thousand Guineas, and, after running well to the straight in the Derby, faded out to sixteenth. Boswell's performances had been ordinary, to say the least. His form in July is best revealed by the following from the pen of Meyrick Good in London "Sporting Life":

"If Captain Boyd-Rochfort hoped to get a line to the Eclipse Stakes chance of Precipitation by the aid of Boswell in the Lingfield Park Plate he was disappointed. Boswell met Fair Trial at the weight that separates them in the Sandown race. It would be a difficult matter to estimate the extent of the beating that the Beckhampton colt administered. As a trial for the Eclipse, the race was of little value. Captain Boyd-Rochfort, with three left- in the Lingfield Park Plate, relied on Boswell in the hope that in a small field the colt would show a glimpse of the form he revealed in a gallop just before the Derby. The three-year-old ran in blinkers, and though he made the running until a quarter of a mile from home, his effort was spineless from the moment Fair Trial shot Up to him."

When Rhodes Scholar won ' the Eclipse Stakes, Meyrick Good described him-as "the best horse in training." The winning margin, he said, could have been doubled, and the colt probably started a warm favourite1 over Mahmoud for the St. Leger. ' The cableman so far has offered no explanation of his defeat.

Rhodes Scholar's sire, Pharos, was a middle-distance exponent rather than a stayer. Yet another' of his family, Cameronian, was a failure in the St. Leger, after having carried Oft the Derby, and Firdaussi's was a narrowlygained victory over Dastur. It is on record that Cameronian was much upset on St. Leger afternoon, and, according to his jockey, literally went mad. The sequel was that he ran himself right out a long way from the finish, and was found with a temperature the same evening. In the following year he turned the tables oij Sandwich in the Jockey Club Stakes.under an immense weight for so small a horse. Curiously enough, it was Firdaussi, then a three-year-old, who beat the pair, but he weakened at the.end. There is evidence in the foregoing that rather supports the view that Firdaussi and Cameronian were not out-and-out stayers, and their sire, Pharos, had shaped in the Derby as though ten furlongs would have been a more congenial distance.—"Ribbonwood." .''■■'■'