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The Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Sponsored By QIPCO)

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History

Long recognised as Europe’s mile championship, 1,600 metre races come no bigger than this anywhere on the international stage.  With £1.1 million in prize money, the race has entered a different stratosphere in financial terms, boosted from £250,000 in 2010 when it was run at Ascot’s late September meeting.  It is now by far the richest mile race in Europe and one of the most valuable in the world.

Named in honour of The Queen in 1955, the race has a roll of honour packed full of stars, including Brigadier Gerard (1971 & 72), Known Fact (1980), Dubai Millennium (1999) and the awesome Frankel, who took the race in 2011 in effortless fashion to maintain his unbeaten record.

The race holds special memories for Frankie Dettori.  It provided him with his first ever Group 1 race victory thanks to Markofdistinction in 1990 and when Mark Of Esteem landed the spoils in 1996, it was the third leg of his “Magnificent Seven” when he won every race on that famous (or infamous if you were a bookmaker) Ascot card.

When Poet’s Voice triumphed in 2010, it was Frankie’s fifth victory (he also won it on Dubai Millennium in 1999 and Ramonti in 2007), easily the best record of any current jockey in the race. He still has a bit to go to match Willie Carson.  He won it 8 times in his illustrious riding career.

Frankel and Excelebration, the two best milers in the world at the time (given that Frankel had stepped up in distance), stamped their authority on the race in the first two runnings on QIPCO British Champions Day, while Olympic Glory was victorious for the Hannon team in 2013.

The race returned to France the following year, however, with Charm Spirit lifting the honours for Freddy Head and Olivier Peslier.

Head would be celebrating again in 2015, too, as his brilliant miler Solow cast aside his rivals at Ascot.

Current leading jockey: Frankie Dettori, 6 wins (1990, 1996, 1999, 2007, 2010, 2017)
Current leading trainers: Saeed bin Suroor, 5 wins (1996, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2010)

Previous winners

Year Horse Jockey Trainer Owner Prize money

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Persuasive signs off in sytle for Gosden and Dettori

Persuasive provided trainer John Gosden with a second victory in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (sponsored by QIPCO). The four-year-old daughter of Dark Angel relished underfoot conditions and kept on tenaciously to win by a length under Frankie Dettori from the 2-1 favourite Ribchester.

Aidan O’Brien’s Churchill (9-2) was a half-length behind in third under Ryan Moore.

Gosden confirmed that the Cheveley Park Stud-owned filly would now be retired and he paid tribute to Persuasive, commenting: “She is very talented and has had no luck in Group Ones before today. She will now go to the breeding shed so it’s nice to go out on a high.

“She deserves it and is a very nice filly. I think she would have been unlucky if she had not have won because she was about to get boxed in so Frankie had to take her back, check his run and switch.

“She just adores this autumn ground and I have had to wait a long time. The owners have been incredibly patient to wait a long time to have her right. She’s got her ground today and just flies through it.

“I never worry taking on the boys in a race in the autumn with a filly as they go through hell in the spring and summer hormonally and they come to late summer/autumn and everything is settled so they can focus on racing.”

It was Dettori’s sixth win in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes since he broke his Group One duck in the race in 1990 aboard Markofdistinction.

Dettori said: “Persuasive travelled so good – I could not believe it. The ground is key for her. Barry [her groom] knows the filly very well and told me to wait as long as I dared. She showed an explosive turn of foot.

“I thought the race was going to be very tough, but she put it to bed very quickly. She came really good two furlongs out. I followed Churchill and I saw his distress signal, and I just needed some clean air. Once Ribchester shifted across to the right there was a gap for me, so I took her right and she took off.”

Ribchester took his record in Group One races this year to 311212 and Richard Fahey said: “It’s difficult to blame the ground as he’s a horse who’s won on soft ground, but he’s such a good moving horse and William [Buick] feels there that he’s come to win and win well but he just got beaten in the dead ground there. He just doesn’t put it to bed. The winner coped with the conditions better. That’s twice he’s been beaten in desperate conditions. But we’re happy enough. Well, not really, but I have to say that! I’m frustrated, rather than disappointed.”

Churchill had every chance in the final throws and Ryan Moore, partner of the three-year-old, said: “He ran a very good race. We were crossed by the second and that cost us a lot of momentum. When you get stopped in that ground you can’t get going again.”

Results

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The Course

British horseracing can lay claim to plenty of blue-blooded connections, but none rival those of Ascot. The Berkshire racecourse’s roots go back 300 years to Queen Anne, who recognised the potential of a stretch of heath land while out riding just a few miles from Windsor Castle.

The royal link has endured ever since. Today, Queen Elizabeth II and members of the Royal Family attend the world-famous ‘Royal Ascot’ meeting each year, arriving in a horse drawn carriage. Royal Ascot, meanwhile, has earned iconic status as a centrepiece of the social calendar, when the world’s best thoroughbreds face fierce competition from the world’s most extravagant fashion designs.

Ascot, which underwent a £200 million redevelopment between 2004-6, also hosts the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes sponsored by QIPCO in July, the most prestigious open-age Flat race staged in Britain.

It will also host the inaugural QIPCO British Champions Day in October which will be the richest raceday ever staged in Britain with over £4.2m in prize money and the climax to the QIPCO British Champions Series.  Including the five category finales on QIPCO British Champions Day, Ascot stages no less than 13 of the 35 QIPCO British Champions Series races.

What sort of horses like Ascot? Horses that like right-handed courses. And what sort of people? People who like champagne and scones, apparently. During the five-day Royal Ascot meeting in 2010, 60,000 bottles of champagne and 40,000 scones were consumed. Lobsters, meanwhile, don’t like Royal Ascot – 1,500 of them were eaten over that same period.

Getting there

Ascot
Berkshire
SL5 7JX

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