Stakes Day Magic
Take the newly enriched Darley Champions Sprint. This was the race previously known as the Darley Sprint Classic. It is the race that Nature Strip, son of Nicconi, won in 2019 and again in 2021 before triumphing in June last year in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot. You might recall the Sprint in earlier years as the Patinack Farm Classic when Black Caviar sizzled to victory in 2010 and again in 2011; or as the Age Classic when Miss Andretti won in 2007. Confusion can creep in because the race was moved in Miss Andretti’s year from its previous position on Victoria Derby Day. And Miss Andretti’s was the year when the classic became a weight-for-age contest. For the previous forty-seven years the race had been a Derby Day quality six- furlong handicap, adjusting to the metric 1200 metres from 1972. It was the Salinger Stakes in Takeover Target’s era, and the Southcorp when Brawny Spirit won. It was the Gadsden from 1985 to 1993: Final Card equalled the track record in 1991. The race had first been run in 1960 with tobacco branding, among the first commercially sponsored events at Flemington. Champion names on the early list of winners include Vain, Dual Choice, Century and Maybe Mahal. Similarly, the Kennedy Champions Mile has its past as the ‘Cantala Stakes’. This connection is even more tortuous, winding its way back to an 1881
GATOR’S MILE: Fan-favourite Alligator Blood, and jockey Tim Clark, claimed the 2022 Kennedy Champions Mile in emphatic fashion. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
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