Blast From The Past: 1996 St Leger

‘Squiggle horse wins classic’. That was how Shantou’s essay began in Racehorses of 1996, suggesting a possible headline after the Sheikh Mohammed-owned colt had won that year’s St Leger. The Timeform ‘squiggle’ (§) next to a horse’s rating indicates unreliability, most often for reasons of temperament. Animals of all abilities receive the symbol, though generally speaking a willingness to win is what sets the best horses apart. As Shantou’s essay’s pointed out, it’s certainly rare for a classic winner to be a ‘squiggle horse’, and it had to go back to a French Derby winner of the 1950s, Auriban (‘an obstinate and obstreperous rascal’) to find another example.

Shantou wasn’t badly behaved like Auriban, at least not on the racecourse, though he could reportedly be a handful at home. Instead, he’d earned his squiggle from losing two of his races, sent off favourite both times, which he really should have won – this was a colt who had been good enough to finish third in the Derby after all. At Epsom, he’d been beaten only two and a half lengths behind the winner Shaamit with Dushyantor second.

Dushyantor went on to start 2/1 favourite for the St Leger after winning the Great Voltigeur at York, while Shantou (8/1 at Doncaster) had been set an easier task during Ebor week when getting his head back in front in a minor event at Windsor. As for his only previous win, in a maiden at Sandown earlier in the year, Shantou was reunited with Frankie Dettori who had also ridden him at Epsom and was back on board again when Shantou faced nine rivals in the St Leger.

Shantou, incidentally, was very much bred for the St Leger, even though it was the only race in which his sire, the dual Arc winner Alleged was beaten, when going down to the Queen’s top-class filly Dunfermline. Shantou’s grandam was none other than Oh So Sharp, the filly whose 1985 St Leger victory clinched her the fillies’ triple crown and gave Sheikh Mohammed his first success in the oldest classic.

Not for the first time after a close finish – or the last - Racehorses took issue with the punishments dished out by the stewards to both Dettori and Pat Eddery on Dushyantor for their use of the whip, describing Dettori’s four-day ban as ‘frankly ridiculous.’ Here’s how the closing stages were described:

‘Dushyantor looked odds on: Pat Eddery had him restrained on the heels of the leaders from three furlongs out until two furlongs out and then asked for his effort. It is misguided to state that Dushyantor did not stay: he drew four lengths clear of the rest. Shantou, though, stayed even better. Rowed along in fifth and having to be switched when Dushyantor went by, Shantou mounted a steady challenge, looked to be getting the worse of the battle but then pulled out all the stops to get up by a neck.’

For Dettori it was a second consecutive St Leger victory after Classic Cliché had given him a first win. Since then, Scorpion, Sixties Icon and Conduit have provided him with three more winners. Shantou was a first St Leger winner for his trainer John Gosden who has since been successful with Lucarno, Arctic Cosmos and Masked Marvel and has prospects of a fifth win - perhaps another with Dettori in the saddle - on Saturday with either Stradivarius or Coronet.   

As for Shantou, he went on to win two more Group 1 contests in Italy and the Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket. His squiggle was removed after the St Leger.