Author: G C

As the name suggests, British Champions Day is a single-day race meeting, staged annually in October at Ascot Racecourse, Berkshire, and marks the culmination of the British Champion Series. Since its inception, in 2011, British Champions Day has become one of the most prestigious and valuable events in the British sporting calendar and, in 2018, the total prize money for the six-race card was a record £4.35 million.

The British Champion Series consists of 35 major races run during the British flat racing season – including the five ‘Classic’ races – and is sponsored, like British Champions Day, by QIPCO Holding, one of the leading private investment companies in Qatar. The first five races on British Champions Day represent the final, decisive round in each of the five categories in the British Champions Series, namely Sprint, Mile, Middle Distance, Long Distance and Fillies & Mares.

The Group 1 British Champions Sprint Stakes, run over 6 furlongs, was inaugurated, as the Diadem Stakes, in 1946, but was renamed in 2011 and is now the finale of the British Champion Series Sprint Category. The race was elevated to Group 1 status in 2015.

The finale of the British Champions Series Mile Category, Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, was inaugurated in 1955 and achieved Group 1 status in 1987. The finale of the British Champions Series Middle Distance Category, the Champion Stakes, run over 1 mile 2 furlongs, has been a Group 1 contest since the European Pattern race system was introduced in 1971, but was inaugurated, at Newmarket, in 1877.

The Group 2 British Champions Long Distance Cup, run over 2 miles, was also inaugurated at Newmarket, in 1873, as the Jockey Club Cup. The race was relocated and renamed in 2011, and elevated to Group 2 status three years later.

The Group 1 British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes, run over 1 mile 4 furlongs, was inaugurated in 1946, as the Princess Royal Stakes, but was transferred to Newmarket, as the Pride Stakes, in 2008. The race moved back to Ascot, under its current title, in 2011 and was elevated to Group 1 status in 2013.

Not to be confused with the now-defunct Balmoral Handicap formerly run over 5 furlongs at Royal Ascot, the final race on British Champions Day is a new version, run over a mile and worth £250,000 in total prize money. Now the most valuable one-mile handicap in Europe, the Balmoral Handicap was run for the first time, in its current guise, in 2014.

The November Meeting – formerly The Open, but renamed in 2017 to avoid confusion with The Open Championship, also often known, colloquially, as ‘The Open’ – is the first major meeting of the season at Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire

Nowadays, of course, National Hunt racing takes place all year ‘round, more or less, but the ‘core’ period remains between the November Handicap, which marks the end of one Flat racing season, and the Lincoln Handicap, which marks the start of the next. Consequently, the November Meeting is considered by many as the start of the National Hunt season ‘proper’, not just because of the high-quality racing on offer, but also because it begins a period of uninterrupted jumping action.

The November Meeting is staged over three days, billed as Countryside Day, the November Meeting Saturday and the November Meeting Sunday, with a feature race on each day. The highlight of the first day is the Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Steeple Chase, run over 3 miles 6 furlongs and open to horses aged five years and upwards. During the race, horses must negotiate thirty-two idiosyncratic obstacles – including banks, ditches, hedges and rails – that comprise the Cross Country Course at Prestbury Park.

The feature race of day two, is the more orthodox, but no less exciting, BetVictor Gold Cup Steeplechase, a Grade 3 handicap event run over 2 miles 4 furlongs on the Old Course and open to horses aged four years and upwards. Inaugurated in 1960, as the Mackeson Gold Cup, the BetVictor Gold Cup Steeplechase invariably attracts a large, high-quality field; its recent roll of honour includes Imperial Commander, who went on to win the Ryanair Chase and the Cheltenham Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival.

November Meeting Sunday is the only Sunday when racing takes place at Cheltenham Racecourse. The feature race is the Greatwood Hurdle, another Grade 3 handicap event, run over 2 miles and 110 yards on the Old Course and open to horses aged for years and upwards. Currently sponsored by Unibet, a brand name of gambling operator Kindred Group, the Greatwood Hurdle was elevated to Grade 3 status in 2004. Although a handicap, the Greatwood is run over the same course and distance as the Champion Hurdle and, consequently, is considered a key trial for that race. That said, the last horse to win both races was Rooster Booster in 2002/03.

The October Trophy at Doncaster Racecourse, in South Yorkshire, was inaugurated, as the Timeform Gold Cup, in 1961 and, for sponsorship purposes, has been run under various titles – Observer Gold Cup, William Hill Futurity Stakes and Racing Post Trophy Stakes – over the years. The latest title sponsor is independent stockbroker Vertem Asset Management so, starting in 2018, the race will be run as the Vertem Futurity Trophy.

In any event, the race, which is run over a mile and open to two-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies, has been a Group 1 contest since the introduction of the European Pattern system in 1971. It is, in fact, the final Group 1 of the season and is staged annually in October on the second day of a two-day fixture on Town Moor.

Despite the assertion of the late Phil Bull, founder of Timeform, that the race is not “something to provide resourceless and thought lazy journalists with guidance as to what might win next year’s Classic races”, the Vertem Futurity Stakes has become a recognised trial for the Derby. Five winners – Reference Point (1986), High Chaparral (2001), Motivator (2004), Authorized (2006) and Camelot (2011) – have gone on to win the Epsom Classic the following season. The late Sir Henry Cecil, trainer of Reference Point, saddled ten winners of the Vertem Futurity Trophy between 1969 and 1993 and remains the most successful trainer in the history of the race.

The Future Champions Festival is the highlight of the so-called Gold Season, which is the term used by the Jockey Club to describe the late summer and autumn programme of horse racing on the Rowley Mile Course at Newmarket, Suffolk, in the East of England. The two-day meeting, which is staged annually in October, is sponsored by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of the Emirate of Dubai and, under the terms of the sponsorship deal, is officially known as the Dubai Future Champions Festival.

As the name suggests, the Dubai Future Champions Festival combines races of the highest class for promising young horses, including Group 1 feature races on each day, with a selection that are open to their older counterparts.

The highlight of the opening day, a.k.a. “Autumn Ladies Day”, is the Group 1 bet365 Fillies’ Mile, which offers £500,000 in prize money and is, in fact, the most valuable race for two-year-old fillies’ in Europe. The Fillies’ Mile was inaugurated in 1973, at Ascot, where it was run under various names, for sponsorship purposes, before being transferred to Newmarket, as the Shadwell Fillies’ Mile, in 2011. The race was awarded Group 3 status in 1975, elevated to Group 2 status in 1986 and finally achieved Group 1 status in 1990.

Similarly, the Group 1 Darley Dewhurst Stakes, run over 7 furlongs and open to two-year-old colts and fillies, is the feature race on the second day. The outcome of the prestigious race, which also offers £500,000 in total prize money, making it the most valuable race of its kind in Europe, jointly with the bet365 Fillies’ Mile, usually has a bearing on the betting for the One Thousand Guineas and/or the Two Thousand Guineas, back on the Rowley Mile the following spring.

Nowadays, the second day of the Dubai Future Champions Festival also includes the second leg of the traditional “Autumn Double”, the Cesarewitch, an historic ‘heritage’ handicap run over 2 miles 2 furlongs and open to horses aged three years and upwards. In 2018, the total prize money for the Cesarewitch doubled, to £500,000, with plans for further increases, to £750,000 in 2019 and £1 million in 2020.