Horse Racing Betting: Donn McClean’s Three Most Memorable Champion Stakes Winners
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The Champion Stakes signs off the flat racing season in the United Kingdom with the ultimate test of horse and jockey in the contest at Ascot Racecourse.
The race has a prestigious history dating back to 1877 when Springfield became the first horse to triumph.
The Champions Stakes is part of the Champions Series that takes place annually in October at Ascot, featuring the best horses from around the world over mile-and-a-quarter of action on the track.
True greats of the sport have been crowned in the event, including three-time winner Tristan. Modern-day greats include Frankel and Cracksman, with the latter being the last horse to win successive races.
Ahead of the 2023 British Champion Stakes where you will find the best odds available on betting sites, we take a look back at three of the greatest winners in the history of the race.
1. Pebbles, 1985
The 1985 Champion Stakes build-up was all about Slip Anchor and Commanche Run. Slip Anchor the three-year-old, the brilliant Derby winner, pillar to post and never in danger of being caught, jockey Steve Cauthen’s first Derby.
Commanche Run the four-year-old, the St Leger winner of 1984, who had dropped down in trip and won the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup at York earlier in the 1985 season – the modern day Juddmonte International – and the Irish Champion Stakes.
The preamble was all about the colts’ clash, but the pre-race market recognised that there was the possibility of a gate-crasher: 6/4 Slip Anchor, 13/8 Commanche Run, 5/1 Pebbles, 14/1 and better the rest.
Slip Anchor led, as you suspected he would. Cauthen in the famous peach Lord Howard de Walden silks bowling along from early at the head of the field.
Commanche Run wasn’t too far behind him though. Lester Piggott’s familiar poise in the Ivan Allan colours just towards the far side and no more than a length and a half behind.
Pebbles was further back. Pat Eddery was patient, happy to allow the protagonists at it up front as he settled Sheikh Mohammed’s filly well back in the field, in a share of last place as they passed half way.
Clive Brittain’s filly made her ground easily too, along the stands rail without the need for her rider to even give her a squeeze. She moved easily between Slip Anchor and Commanche Run at the two-furlong marker and, in the blink of an eye, she was in front.
Slip Anchor was under pressure to her left and Commanche Run was beating a retreat. All of a sudden, Helen Street was Pebbles’ only challenger. But there wasn’t really a challenger.
Eddery took a long look to his right before asking his filly to extend and, when he did, Pebbles came clear of her rivals effortlessly and recorded a facile victory.
Slip Anchor battled back gamely to reclaim the runner-up spot from Palace Music, to whom Pebbles had finished second in the 1984 renewal of the race.
The following month, Pebbles went to America, and rounded off her stellar career by landing the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
2. Kalanisi, 2000
There were seven Group 1 winners in the 2000 Champion Stakes. Kalanisi was not one of them, but he had won the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot earlier that season, and that race was promoted from a Group 2 to a Group 1 three years later.
Sir Michael Stoute’s horse had finished second to Giant’s Causeway in the Eclipse and in the Juddmonte International earlier that summer, beaten a head by the iron horse on each occasion.
Those two performances would have been good enough to win most Group 1 races.
Even so, he wasn’t sent off as favourite for the 2000 Champion Stakes.
That honour was bestowed on Montjeu, only fourth behind Sinndar in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on his previous run, but a brilliant racehorse (and subsequently an outstanding stallion), winner of the Tattersalls Gold Cup and the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and the King George earlier that season.
Also in the line-up for the 2000 Champion Stakes were the Oaks winner Love Divine, the Dewhurst winner Distant Music, the Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Shiva, the Irish Champion Stakes runner-up Greek Dance, and the Grand Prix de Paris winner Slickly.
In the end, though, the race developed into a duel between the first and second favourites, Kalanisi and Montjeu, Johnny Murtagh in the Aga Khan colours, Michael Kinane in the Michael Tabor silks.
The overhead shot as they raced past the four-furlong marker was revealing: Kalanisi cutting through his field towards the far side, Montjeu making stealthy progress from further back, closer to the stands rail.
Kalanisi joined the front rank three furlongs out and Montjeu moved off the rail, moved into stalking territory just behind him, both riders still motionless.
Murtagh moved on Kalanisi the run to the two-furlong pole, gave his horse a squeeze and moved up on the outside of leader Love Divine.
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Kinane was still motionless in behind, moved Montjeu towards the left and towards the stands rail. Their pincer movement swallowed Love Divine up, Kalanisi to her right, Montjeu to her left, and then it was a duel.
Out of the dip and into the final furlong, Montjeu along the stands rail, Kalanisi three horse-widths off it, both riders asking for all and both horses giving all.
You couldn't call it until about 75 yards from the winning line, when Kalanisi nostrilled ahead and forged on. A nose, a head, a neck. In the end, it was a half a length, Kalanisi from Montjeu, the pair of them clear in a thriller.
3. Frankel, 2012
Frankel was Frankel long before he lined up in the 2012 Champion Stakes. Unbeaten at two, the Royal Lodge winner, the Dewhurst winner. The Juddmonte colt won his four races as a juvenile by an aggregate of 25¾ lengths.
Unbeaten at three, the Greenham, the Guineas, the St James’s Palace Stakes, the Sussex Stakes, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, by an aggregate of 19¾ lengths with a stride that demolished adversaries.
Kept in training at four, Sir Henry Cecil’s colt continued his unwavering march, the Lockinge, the Queen Anne, the Sussex. Then he stepped up to 10 and a half furlongs for the first time and won the Juddmonte International.
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The Champion Stakes was his swansong, regardless of how it went, and common consensus was that it was the toughest assignment of his career.
He had never raced on ground that was as soft as the ground that he was going to encounter at Ascot in October 2012, not since he made his racecourse debut at Newmarket in August 2010 anyway, when he got home by a half a length from Nathaniel.
And that was August soft ground, in the middle of the summer, not October soft ground, on the cusp of the winter.
In Cirrus Des Aigles, he was meeting a top class racehorse, the 2011 Champion Stakes winner who excelled in testing conditions.
Sent off at 1/10 in the Queen Anne and the Juddmonte International, and at 1/20 in the Sussex Stakes, you could have backed Frankel at 2/11 in the Champion Stakes.
If you did, you probably would have been a little worried when he was slowly away from the stalls and had to be woken up by Tom Queally early on. But after that, you wouldn’t have worried at all.
Frankel coasted through his race up on the outside, he moved effortlessly into the home straight and, when Cirrus Des Aigles kicked for home at the two-furlong pole, he easily covered the move.
He picked up one final time when Queally asked him to, and he went to the line strongly to crown a truly remarkable racing career, 14 for 14, one of the greatest of all time and maybe even the greatest.
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