Initially known as the Ballycullen Stakes and run at Leopardstown, the 2816-metre event was renamed in 1995 with the first running as the Irish St Leger Trial Stakes won by Vintage Crop.
That gelding, of course, changed the face of the Melbourne Cup with his win two years prior and returned to Australia and log a Melbourne Cup third placing in the year of the St Leger Trial win.
Another Dermot Weld-trained stayer, Vinnie Roe, won the St Leger Trial in 2001 before becoming a Spring Carnival regular and playing a key role in two famous Melbourne Cups.
He finished fourth as favourite behind stablemate Media Puzzle in 2002 and beat home all-bar legendary mare Makybe Diva in the second of her wins, in 2004.
More recently, Twilight Payment was a St Leger Trial regular and while he did not contest the race in 2020, the year of his Melbourne Cup win, he did return to win the Irish Group 3 in 2021.
Grosvenor Square had many wondering whether he would become the next St Leger Trial winner to also find his way onto the Melbourne Cup honour roll after last weekend’s 20-length romp.
That catapulted the son of Galileo straight to the head of Melbourne Cup betting.
Grosvenor Square posted a Timeform figure of 118 in his win, a mark that is up on the Timeform average for the race in the past 20 years.
The highest winning figure in that time was Order Of St George’s 122+ in 2015, the first of his three wins in the race, while he went 119 in 2016 and 120 in 2017.
In the last of those wins, Order Of St George defeated Rekindling, who posted a figure of 118 – the number that Grosvenor Square ran last weekend – after going own by 4-3/4 lengths.
Less than three months later, Rekindling elevated to 123 to win the Melbourne Cup.
As Grosvenor Square is now, Rekindling was a Northern Hemisphere three-year-old in the year of his Melbourne Cup win.
Grosvenor Square will most likely next be seen in the English St Leger, the race Joseph O’Brien interestingly used as the final Cup lead-up for Rekindling, meaning the eyes of all with a view to this year’s Melbourne Cup will be on the 2921m Group 1 at Doncaster on September 14.
