St Leger Results History: Every Winner, Jockey, and Trainer from 1776 to 2025

The St Leger results history stretches back to 1776 — 249 runnings and counting, with the 250th edition scheduled for September 2026 at Doncaster. No other flat race in Britain offers a comparable archive. The Derby began four years later. The Oaks three years later. The St Leger was first, and its winners’ roll reads like a compressed history of the Thoroughbred breed.

For punters, historical results are more than heritage decoration. They contain patterns: which trainers dominate which eras, how favourite strike rates shift over time, and whether the race rewards front-runners or closers. The table and analysis below cover the complete modern era in detail and highlight the five individual renewals that altered the race’s trajectory. Whether you are studying form or simply curious about who won in the year you were born, this is the reference.

Complete St Leger Winners Table

The table below covers the last twenty St Leger runnings, from 2006 to 2025. For each year, the winner, jockey, trainer, starting price, and official going are recorded. These are the data points that matter most for betting analysis: they show which stables target the race consistently, how the market prices winners, and what ground conditions tend to produce.

A few things stand out immediately. Aidan O’Brien’s name appears six times in the last twelve years alone, a dominance unmatched by any other active trainer. Ryan Moore, Sean Levey, and Tom Marquand between them have ridden O’Brien’s recent winners. John Gosden trained three winners in the late 2000s and early 2010s before Logician gave him a fourth in 2019. And the starting prices reveal that while favourites win roughly half the time, genuine outsiders — Harbour Law at 22/1, Encke at 25/1 — can and do break through.

For punters, the going column is worth studying alongside form. The St Leger has been run on everything from good to firm to soft in the last twenty years, and the winners on softer ground tend to come from different profiles than those who prevail on quicker surfaces. Matching a runner’s proven going preference to the expected conditions is one of the simplest and most effective filtering tools available.

Patterns by Decade: Who Dominated When

Every era of the St Leger has been shaped by a dominant figure, and the pattern repeats with striking regularity. In the nineteenth century, trainer John Scott won sixteen St Legers — a record that still stands and probably always will, given that it was compiled across a forty-year career when competition was thinner and the race was one of very few prestige events on the calendar. Among jockeys, Bill Scott rode nine winners — the all-time record — followed by Lester Piggott with eight and Frankie Dettori with six.

The mid-twentieth century saw the race pass through the hands of a succession of powerful Newmarket stables. Sir Noel Murless and then Sir Henry Cecil trained St Leger winners during periods when British flat racing was concentrated in a small number of yards. Piggott, riding for whoever had the best horse, accumulated his eight victories across three decades — a testament to his tactical intelligence and his almost preternatural ability to judge the pace of a staying race.

The modern era belongs to Aidan O’Brien. His nine St Leger victories, including an unprecedented three consecutive wins from 2023 to 2025, represent the most concentrated period of single-trainer dominance in the race’s modern history. O’Brien became the first trainer in the race’s 249-year history to win three consecutive runnings. The 2010s were contested more broadly — Gosden, Varian, and bin Suroor all claimed editions — but from 2017 onwards, O’Brien reasserted Ballydoyle’s grip with Capri, Kew Gardens, and then the three-peat of Continuous, Jan Brueghel, and Scandinavia.

What does this mean for bettors? Dominance cycles in the St Leger tend to last longer than in shorter races, because the staying division is inherently narrower. Fewer horses are bred specifically for a mile and six furlongs, so a stable that identifies the right type — and O’Brien does this better than anyone — can exploit the lack of depth for years at a time. Opposing the dominant trainer is possible, but it requires a strong reason, not just a feeling that the streak is due to end.

The starting-price column in the results table confirms the tension between predictability and upset. Data from HorseRacing.guide shows that six of the last twelve winners were favourites or co-favourites, suggesting a race where form holds up more often than not. But the other six — including Harbour Law at 22/1, Mastery at 14/1, and Encke at 25/1 — prove that the market’s confidence is misplaced almost as often as it is rewarded. For a punter, the lesson is nuanced: respect the favourite, but do not assume the favourite will win.

The jockey records offer a different lesson. Piggott’s eight wins came across decades, reflecting longevity and consistency. Dettori’s six came in concentrated bursts when he rode for Gosden and other top-tier trainers. Moore’s accumulating total is tied directly to O’Brien’s success. The jockey matters, but the jockey is almost always a function of the stable — and in the St Leger, stable strength is the primary variable.

Five Races That Changed the Leger’s Story

Some St Legers are remembered not for the betting result but for what they revealed about the race itself. Five renewals stand above the rest.

The first is Theodore, 1822 — winner at the staggering price of 200/1, the longest-priced Classic winner in British turf history. Theodore’s victory remains a reminder that the St Leger, for all its predictable patterns, is still horse racing. A 200/1 shot would be considered unbettable today, yet Theodore won by a comfortable margin, and the form book offered no excuse for the market’s misjudgment.

Nijinsky in 1970 completed the Triple Crown — 2000 Guineas, Derby, St Leger — and no horse has done it since. Trained by Vincent O’Brien (no relation to Aidan) and ridden by Lester Piggott, Nijinsky was already a legend before arriving at Doncaster. His St Leger victory sealed the last Triple Crown of the twentieth century and, as it turned out, the twenty-first so far. Nijinsky won by a length from Meadowville, but as Piggott later acknowledged, the victory was harder than it appeared — the horse was all out at the finish after the exertions of a long season. The result marked the end of an era in which trainers still viewed all three Classics as a single, coherent campaign.

Camelot’s defeat in 2012 was the mirror image. Sent off at 2/5 having won the Guineas and the Derby, Camelot looked certain to become the sixteenth Triple Crown winner. He finished second behind the 25/1 outsider Encke, beaten by three quarters of a length after being unable to obtain a clear run in the straight. The result effectively ended the modern debate about whether the Triple Crown was achievable — most trainers concluded that the combination of distance, timing, and tactical complexity made the feat virtually impossible in the modern era.

Logician in 2019, trained by John Gosden and ridden by Dettori, was notable for the manner of his victory — authoritative, visually impressive, and run on ground that suited his long stride. It was Gosden’s finest Doncaster moment and a reminder that Ballydoyle does not own the race permanently.

And then Scandinavia in 2025, who gave O’Brien his historic third consecutive victory. After the race, O’Brien noted that his horse possessed genuine class and handled the soft ground with composure — a combination that proved decisive over the final two furlongs. The three-peat confirmed that the St Leger in its current form is Ballydoyle’s race to lose, and any analysis of the 2026 edition must begin with that fact.