{"id":90620,"date":"2025-10-22T08:15:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/90620\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T08:15:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T08:15:24","slug":"firbeck-sculpture-proposed-for-home-of-st-leger-race-founder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/90620\/","title":{"rendered":"Firbeck sculpture proposed for home of St Leger race founder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">A sculpture garden has been proposed to help mark a village&#8217;s importance in the history of a prestigious horse race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The St Leger Stakes was established in Doncaster in 1776 and is one of the UK&#8217;s oldest and most famous races.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">It was founded by Lt Col Anthony St Leger, who lived in Firbeck, Rotherham, with the sculpture garden in the village set to feature two steel racehorses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The plans, submitted by Firbeck Parish Council to Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, would see the tribute installed on a grass verge off Kidd Lane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The proposed design shows the horses galloping past a stone wall towards a field known locally as Long Close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Folklore suggests the area was once used for informal races organised by St Leger himself, the <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/lnp\/ldrs\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 jZoZnB\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">Firbeck&#8217;s connection to the race is already marked by a blue plaque and village sign, but backers of the new artwork hoped it would offer a further visible tribute to the area&#8217;s role in racing history. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The St Leger Stakes is the oldest of the five British classic races and is held annually at Doncaster Racecourse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 bJoRPJ\">The route spans a distance of one mile, six furlongs and 115 yards (2,921m).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sculpture garden has been proposed to help mark a village&#8217;s importance in the history of a prestigious&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-90620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}