Harbour Law Gives Mongan St. Leger Victory
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Photo: RACINGFOTOS.COM/Dan Abraham
Harbour Law (left, orange silks) gets up late to take the St. Leger.
Laura Mongan became the first woman to train a winner of the Ladbrokes St. Leger (Eng-I) Sept. 10 at Doncaster, where Harbour Law won the English classic by three-quarters of a length.
The 3-year-old Lawman colt raced just behind Ventura Storm and Housesofparliament in the late stages, but surged by on the outside in the final strides to win under jockey George Baker in 3:05.48 for a mile, six furlongs, and 132 yards. Ventura Storm just edged Houseofparliament by a head at the wire for second.
"It was brilliant. I think I screamed a lot. I'm in shock," Mongan said. "I'm so glad we came here and he's proved that he can do it. We didn't want to ride him like that, but George knows what he's doing and all credit to him. We knew we could leave it to him.
"It was a really professional performance by the horse, we knew he'd go somewhere in life. It proves we can do it with the ammunition. It's great to have a horse like this and bring him here for a race like this."
Favored Idaho appeared to be in good position about three furlongs out, but stumbled and unseated jockey Seamie Heffernan.
"It's an amazing feeling to win the Leger," said Baker, who took his first edition of the race. "I worked him at Kempton about two weeks ago and he felt brilliant. When Idaho clipped heels it made it a very open race."