Looking ahead to this season's meeting, John Ingles reviews some of the highlights of Champions Day since the fixture moved to Ascot in 2011.
Frankel, 2011 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – ‘a gift from the gods'
The first Qipco Champions Day at Ascot in 2011 could hardly have had a more ‘box office’ name for Britain’s inaugural end-of-year championship fixture than Frankel – ‘a gift from the gods for the organisers’ as Timeform’s essay on Khalid Abdullah’s champion put it. By the end of his three-year-old season, Frankel’s reputation as a phenomenal racehorse was already firmly established and his win in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, which took his unbeaten record to nine races, consolidated his status as an exceptional miler.
His four-length winning margin wasn’t a record for the race and nor was it his widest-margin victory that season – he had won the 2000 Guineas in spectacular fashion by six lengths and the Sussex Stakes by five – but with two other Group 1 winners filling the places, Excelebration, a top-class colt in his own right and winner of the Prix du Moulin, and Immortal Verse, a high-class filly who had beaten Goldikova in the Prix Jacques le Marois, Frankel ran his best race yet. He did so in clinical fashion too, quickening on demand when Tom Queally asked him to run down his pacemaker and half-brother Bullet Train and then gradually drawing away before taking some pulling up after the line.
Cirrus des Aigles, 2011 Champion Stakes – a track record
Unlike most years since, that first Champions Day at Ascot took place on unseasonable ground for mid-October. Officially, the going was described as ‘good’ but Timeform called it ‘good to firm’ with times suggesting it was even quicker than the official. For example, the track record was broken in the Champion Stakes which was won by French gelding Cirrus des Aigles recording his first Group 1 success.
While Frankel’s performance overshadowed everything else on the day, the Champion Stakes thirty-five minutes later attracted its strongest field for years in its first renewal away from its traditional home of Newmarket. A prize money boost took it past the Derby to make it Britain’s richest race, attracting seven Group 1 winners in the field of twelve. It took a top-class effort from Cirrus des Aigles to get the better of favourite So You Think, already winner three times at the top level that season, by three quarters of a length with Snow Fairy, Midday and Nathaniel the next three home.
All very positive, but there was controversy that could have been avoided, with winning jockey Christophe Soumillon falling foul of newly introduced whip rules which were promptly amended again by the BHA, but not before some headlines Champions Day, and the sport in general, could have done without.
Frankel, 2012 Champion Stakes – farewell to Frankel
Twelve months later, Cirrus des Aigles was back to defend his Champion Stakes crown but so too was Frankel, better than ever as a four-year-old and taking on the titleholder over a mile and a quarter having successfully stepped up in trip with his latest breathtaking performance in the Juddmonte International. There was no danger of the track record being broken this time, with conditions so soft that Frankel’s participation was in some doubt for a time, but he took his chance as the 2/11 favourite in a field of six.
Besides Cirrus des Aigles, Frankel’s other main rival was Nathaniel who had been runner-up to Frankel when they made their debuts in a maiden on soft ground at Newmarket two years earlier. More recently, Nathaniel had won the Eclipse since his fifth in the Champion Stakes twelve months earlier. The conditions meant that, for once, Frankel had to work a little for his victory. Having drawn alongside his two main rivals two furlongs out, he had to be ridden to assert at the furlong pole and was pushed along to win with a little in hand by a length and three quarters from Cirrus des Aigles with Nathaniel a further two and a half lengths back in third.
Remarkable scenes followed Frankel’s tenth Group 1 win, ending his career unbeaten in 14 starts, with his by then gravely ill trainer Sir Henry Cecil hailing him as ‘the best I’ve ever had, the best I’ve ever seen, I can’t believe that in the history of racing there has ever been better.’
Muhaarar, 2015 Champions Sprint – a worthy winner
The Qipco British Champions Sprint had been part of the revamped Champions Day programme right from the start though it wasn’t until 2015 that it was given Group 1 status. Appropriately enough, it had a winner that year worthy of the race’s name, something which hasn’t necessarily been the case since. Trained by Charlie Hills for Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, three-year-old Muhaarar was a genuinely top-class sprinter and his win at Ascot in October, his final start before going to stud, was his fourth Group 1 success of the year in a rare display of dominance in the sprint division in recent times.
He had won the first running of the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot against other three-year-olds by nearly four lengths but had much less to spare when accounting for older sprinters in the July Cup and Prix Maurice de Gheest. But he dominated the market in a twenty-strong field for the Champions Sprint along with another three-year-old, the unbeaten Sprint Cup winner Twilight Son.
The latter proved no match for Muhaarar who produced a career best back on a track that clearly suited him well, quickening to lead over a furlong out and keeping on well to win by two lengths from his main market rival. He produced the best time performance of the day and, in fact, the best timefigure of the entire season.
Baaeed, 2021 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes – on the Frankel trail
The Queen Elizabeth II Stakes of 2021 promised to be a thrilling clash of the generations and was one of those rare much-anticipated races to live up to expectations. On the one hand there was the top-class four-year-old Palace Pier whose only defeat in ten previous starts had come in the same race twelve months earlier when beaten at odds on into third behind French gelding The Revenant who was also in the field again.
Palace Pier had resumed his dominance at four with further Group 1 wins in the Lockinge Stakes, Queen Anne Stakes and, for the second year running, the Prix Jacques le Marois. He was sent off favourite again but only narrowly at 6/4 against his unbeaten three-year-old rival Baaeed at 2/1. Rapidly improving, Baaeed had only made his debut that June but had quickly gone through the grades to become a Group 1 winner for the first time in the Prix du Moulin.
It was a steadily-run race but the two main players came to the fore, with the strong-travelling Baaeed quickening to lead over a furlong out and having a neck to spare over the keeping-on Palace Pier. Baaeed was still unbeaten when returning a year later for the Champion Stakes, having traced an identical four-year-old campaign as Frankel up until then, but lacked his usual turn of foot in finishing only fourth behind Bay Bridge.
Trueshan, 2022 Long Distance Cup – hat-trick landed
Alan King’s popular stayer Trueshan sadly met with a fatal injury in the Goodwood Cup in the summer, but he leaves behind memories of some fine staying performances, not least in the Long Distance Cup. Trueshan never contested the Gold Cup, the ground proving too firm for him at Royal Ascot in the summer, but conditions were always ideal for him on Champions Day and he completed a hat-trick of wins under Hollie Doyle in the Long Distance Cup in 2022.
It was Coltrane who gave Trueshan most to do in his hat-trick bid, a stronger gallop helping Trueshan turn a neck defeat to that rival in the Doncaster Cup into a head win at Ascot.
Trueshan returned bidding for a fourth win in the Long Distance Cup in 2023, but his efforts in winning a second Prix du Cadran at Longchamp a few weeks earlier had seemingly taken the edge off him as he could finish only fourth behind Trawlerman and Kyprios who pulled a long way clear.
King of Steel, 2023 Champion Stakes – ciao, Frankie!
Frankie Dettori became a household name to many after going through the card in all seven races at the Festival of British Racing in September 1996 - Ascot’s first attempt to create an end-of-season highlight.
Champions Day in 2023 served as the final stop of the three-time champion jockey’s farewell season in Britain, a year when his big wins on home turf had already included the 2000 Guineas, Coronation Cup, Oaks, Gold Cup and Juddmonte International. The day started well for Dettori with a win on Trawlerman in the Long Distance Cup and his riding career in Britain ended in fairytale fashion with success aboard King of Steel in the Champion Stakes.
In truth, it wasn’t a particularly strong renewal, but King of Steel, the 3/1 favourite in a field of eight, delivered a memorable moment by getting up close home to give his rider a third Champion Stakes and the perfect send-off. .
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