Sheikh Juma’s Storm The Stars can shed ‘rebel’ tag with win at the English St Leger

Jockey Pat Cosgrave will be riding Stom The Stars at the English St Leger at Doncaster. Alan Crowhurst Getty Images

Storm The Stars has been described by his trainer William Haggas as a “rebel to society” but all that would be forgiven if Sheikh Juma bin Dalmook’s colt won the English St Leger at Doncaster on Saturday night.

To call Storm The Stars a late developer would be an understatement, given his antics on the gallops at Haggas’s base in Newmarket where often he has simply refused to train.

He finally got his nose in front last month at York, but unsurprisingly it was in controversial circumstances as he steered Saturday night’s rival Bondi Beach from one side of the course to the other before beating him by half a length in the Great Votigeur Stakes.

Haggas concedes he does not know whether Storm The Stars will last home the 2,937 metres of the final Classic of the English season, but is looking to the horse’s battling qualities to see him home under Pat Cosgrave.

“I can’t be certain that he will get the trip,” Haggas said. “He’s not bred to get it but the way that he keeps finding over a mile and a half gives every indication that he will get it.

“I thought he won the Great Voltigeur well and I don’t think that we should make a big thing about him hanging in the closing stages – it was just one of those things.”

Storm The Stars faces two horses from Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle yard after Order Of St George was withdrawn on Friday.

Fields Of Athenry will join stablemate Bondi Beach in the eight-runner line-up in a bid to deliver the Irish trainer a fifth success.

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