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The Coolmore team back in the Leger winners' enclosure

Betfred St Leger reaction: David Ord on Jan Brueghel's victory

By David Ord

11:54 · SUN September 15, 2024

Our man at the course David Ord reflects on Jan Brueghel's victory in the Betfred St Leger.

The Betfred St Leger continues to face familiar challenges.

There are the endless debates over the future of the world’s oldest Classic, it’s relevance in a sport where speed has been prioritised over stamina in recent decades and now, the Irish Champions Festival, have parked their own tank on this particular September Saturday.

It means Doncaster must do battle with a host of Group One head-to-heads over the other side of the Irish Sea that are enjoying more cut-through with every passing year.

Should one meeting move? Should the Leger be tweaked, distance wise, calendar wise?

It’s a debate that has raged for years now. Well not quite raged, but it’s raised in the build-up to the race every 12 months without fail.

The thousands inside Town Moor seemed not to worry one jot that that the top-flight middle-distance cupboard is creaking and emptier than it has been for some time. No glasses were raised to absent friends such as Oisin Murphy, William Buick and Ryan Moore whose riding commitments took them away from South Yorkshire.

Instead, they roared their approval as stablemates Jan Brueghel and Illinois locked horns and served up a Classic thriller.

It was a one-two for Aidan O’Brien, a one-two for the Coolmore team, and more significantly a one-two for the late, great, Galileo.

A fourth Leger winner for the Coolmore behemoth, from his penultimate racing crop.

And with only 13 two-year-olds in training, of which two have run to date, perhaps we witnessed the final Classic success for the sire by which future champions will be measured.

His legacy will live on for decades through his sons and daughters. Here’s a horse who passed on stamina and class to his progeny, who had no problem, coupled with a remarkable broodmare band in County Tipperary, in finding Classic contenders for Epsom, the Curragh and Doncaster, every year without fail.

Where would we be without him? In this year’s Leger all three Ballydoyle runners were sons of Galileo and for Coolmore’s UK representative Kevin Buckley it was a time to reflect.

“It’s phenomenal isn’t it? To sire his 101st Group One winner in a St Leger, with another of his sons second…he’s just such a special stallion to us all,” he smiled.

“The one thing Aidan always says is they gallop through a brick wall for you. They try, are genuine horses. He was a great loss, but we were so lucky to have him in our lifetime.”

Jan Brueghel digs deep to win the St Leger

Jan Brueghel isn’t in many ways your typical Leger winner. Unraced at two, he’s been learning his trade on the racecourse this term, showing palpable signs of greenness when winning the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood last time.

Some questioned whether he was battle-hardened or clued-up enough for this test and having drawn alongside Illinois over two furlongs out, he had every chance to duck the desperate, final, questions.

But the genes were strong, the two Galileo colts fought tooth and nail and in the final 50 yards, Sean Levey knew he was on the winner. A special moment for a rider who learned his trade at Ballydoyle before his career took off in England under the tutelage of Richard Hannon.

And that’s one of the benefits of such a packed international Saturday, big-race opportunities for big-race riders who might otherwise have been watching on from the weighing room.

But as the dust settled on Leger day it was hard not to be drawn back to Galileo and his role in this story.

Next Friday the current Ballydoyle poster-boy City Of Troy heads to Southwell for a racecourse gallop as connections plot his road to the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Were he to provide O’Brien with a first victory in the American showpiece, then praise will be heaped on his sire Justify, the rising star in the Coolmore barns.

He’s exciting.

But in terms of legacy, he’ll have to keep finding City Of Troys, year on year, decade on decade, to prove the natural successor to his illustrious predecessor. If such a thing could possibly exist.

And as you watch the finish to the Leger, you just wonder whether we’ll truly see the likes of Galileo again.

A horse who has provided the firepower for an unparalleled run of domination for any European racing and breeding operation.

And as Jan Brueghel showed on a warm, Doncaster afternoon, right to the end too.

In a race steeped in history, this was a firm nod to the recent past.

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