Does Aidan O’Brien Really Hold the 2025 St Leger Aces?
Aidan O’Brien appears to hold all the aces in the 2025 Betfred St Leger. But Carmers, with verdicts over the market principles, looks a fair bet.
Carmers, seen winning the Queen’s Vase, has beaten both Scandinavia and Lambourne this summer.
Key Facts:
- Aidan O’Brien is responsible for eight of the St Leger’s 15 entries.
- Flat racing’s oldest and final classic of 2025 is scheduled for September 13.
- Scandinavia will rewrite history books if landing the St Leger after winning the Goodwood Cup.
- Queen’s Vase and Great Voltigeur form points to Carmers.
Chasing a ninth success in the classic contest, Aidan O’Brien has a strong numerical hand in Doncaster’s St Leger Stakes scheduled for September 13. The Irish trainer is responsible for over half of the 15 declared entries.
According to the UK’s online betting sites, O’Brien also has a solid mathematical chance of winning the contest. His top three entries, Scandinavia (top-priced 5/4), Lambourn (5/1), and Stay True (12/1), account for almost 70 per cent of the ante-post book.
The fabled one-mile six-furlong race, first run in 1776, carries a £396,970 winner’s prize. Its winner will have its stud value significantly increased. Therefore, the Coolmore Partnership would probably prefer Lambourn, already winner of the English and Irish Derby, to take the honours.
St Leger Form Negatives Easy To Find
This impressive CV, and a stout pedigree that suggests Lambourn will progress for the two furlongs step up in trip from the Derby distance, make him the choice of many punters. However, form students know that no horse has completed the Epsom Derby/St Leger double since Reference Point in 1987.
In winning the Goodwood Cup over two miles at the end of July, Scandinavia has proven his stamina. However, no horse in history has won that race and the St Leger in the same season. Therefore, the big race favourite also carries a ‘form negative’.
A new staying star.
Scandinavia becomes the first three-year-old since the great Stradivarius to win the Group 1 Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup, landing our £500,000 feature for @waynemlordan and Aidan O'Brien @Q_REC pic.twitter.com/RNCry5XOwN
— Goodwood Racecourse (@Goodwood_Races) July 29, 2025
For good measure, Lazy Griff, the best hope for Britain, is another with a form warning. However, the fact that he will bid to become a Betfred St Leger winner that has not previously won as a three-year-old is not an enormous black mark. Kingston Hill (2014) was the last Leger winner who failed to win a race earlier in the season.
Can Haggas or Balding Produce a Home Win?
Outside of the top three in the betting sits Royal Ascot winner, Carmers (7/1). Unraced at two but three-from-four this season, this Group-2 winner is trained in Ireland by Paddy Twomey. The last Irish trainer to win the St Leger other than Aidan O’Brien was Vincent O’Brien (no relation) in 1972.
Further down the betting list sits Arabian Force on 14/1 odds. One of just five British horses in the contest, he has failed to win a race outside of novice company. However, his shrewd trainer, William Haggas, does not confuse his ducks for swans, and punters appear respectful of his decision to enter this candidate.
Haggas has never won this classic. Neither has Andrew Balding, who has two runners amongst the entry: Furthur (20/1) and Tarriance (40/1). The former booked his St Leger ticket with an impressive Group-3 Newbury success in mid-August.
Tarriance has won back-to-back handicaps at Sandown and York, but has more than a stone to find with the market leaders on official figures. Below him is another horse creeping up the ratings, Roger Varian’s Rahiebb (50/1). This contender is yet to win a race on turf but is rated 105 by the handicapper.
How About a Pace Making St Leger Winner?
Four additional runners are in the field: Thrice, Saratoga, Shackleton and Galveston. All can be backed on 66/1 odds, and all are trained by Aidan O’Brien. Suffice it to say, one or more will miss the race; the remainder are likely to be employed as pacemakers.
2025 has been a good year for pacemakers. At Glorious Goodwood, the ‘big guns’ failed to catch the pacesetting Qirat in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes. Scoring at 150/1 odds, his victory was one of the biggest surprises in recent British racing history.
And the St Leger Winner Is?
Ultimately, the St Leger rarely goes to a long shot. The biggest priced winner since 2017 was 9/2. Lambourn would be much shorter in the betting had he not bombed in York’s Great Voltigeur Stakes. But bomb he did, finishing fifth in the seven-runner field as the odds-on favourite.
Ahead of him were Carmers, Arabian Force, and Stay True. However, it was a muddling race with less than two lengths covering the first five home. Deciphering the form worth of this contest, raced over 12 furlongs and not the St Leger’s 14-furlong trip, is near impossible.
A FIRST #ROYALASCOT WINNER FOR PADDY TWOMEY AS CARMERS TAKES THE QUEEN’S VASE! pic.twitter.com/3QImI2FjWz
— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) June 18, 2025
Scandinavia’s chances are much more apparent. An eye-catching fifth in Royal Ascot’s Queens Vase (behind Carmers, Further, Rahiebb and Shackleton), he has improved significantly to impressively win a Group-3 Newmarket contest and one of the country’s leading staying races at Goodwood against older opposition.
Nevertheless, as he proved best in the Ascot contest and the Great Voltigeur, the lightly-raced Carmers appears the obvious bet selection given his dismissive but value-laden 7/1 odds.
