The Flat season finale on British Champions Day at Ascot is on the horizon, and with little more than a month to go until the richest meeting on the British calendar, with over £4m in prize money up for grabs, bettors all over the country are beginning to scour the form guides and search the internet for the best horse racing betting odds.
The Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, is one of the biggest races on Champions Day, with the winner pocketing over £600,000, and this year’s favourite is Palace Pier, who is certainly no stranger to the winners’ enclosure at the prestigious course. So, as the John and Thady Gosden-trained horse gears up for another Group 1 victory, read on as we take a look back at the last five winners of the one-mile race.
2016: Minding
Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien and his number one jockey Ryan Moore have become accustomed to winning the biggest and best races across the world over the course of the last few years, and they won the Queen Elizabeth II together in 2016. Mindinghad quite the season that year, winning the 1000 Guineas, the Oaks, the Pretty Polly Stakes and the Nassau Stakes, and she rounded the campaign off with a fifth Group 1 victory on Champions Day, holding off Ribchesterto win by half-a-length.
2017: Persuasive
It wouldn’t be a British Champions Day without Gosden and the world-renowned Frankie Dettori in the Ascot winners’ enclosure after at least one of the races, and the 2017 renewal of the meeting was no different. It certainly wasn’t Persuasive’s best year of his career. However, everything seemed to fall into place for him in the Queen Elizabeth II. Held up towards the rear, Dettori switched Persuasiveleft two furlongs out, and the 8/1 shot began to close in on the leaders. A lead was open up just before the one-furlong marker, and he raced home a length clear of Ribchester. Dettori and Gosden later won the Champion Stakes with Cracksman.
2018: Roaring Lion
Gosden won back-to-back Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in 2018, this time with Oisin Murphy in the saddle of Roaring Lion. The grey horse went into the one-mile race on the back of major successes in the Sandown Eclipse, the Juddmonte International Stakes and the Irish Champion Stakes, and was heavily backed for another victory with all the leading bookmakers, including Smarkets. Closing in on the leaders one-furlong out, Roaring Lionwas driven into the lead in the final 100 yards, and he went on to beat O’Brien’s I Can Flyby just a nose.
2019: King Of Change
Raced very lightly, King Of Changewas second from 66/1 in the 2019 renewal of the 2000 Guineas, and some four months later, he returned to win the Listed Fortune Stakes at Sandown. That set the Ali Abdulla Saeed-owned horse up nicely for a crack at the Queen Elizabeth II, and he scooped a victory from 12/1. Two lengths clear in the final furlong, King Of Changestarted drifting left, but jockey Sean Levey was able to guide him home just over a length clear of The Revenant.
2020: The Revenant
After narrowly missing out on glory in 2019, The Revenantreturned to Champions Day with a vengeance last year. After almost a full year away from racing, the Francis-Henri Graffard-trained horse warmed-up for the Queen Elizabeth II with a victory in the Prix Daniel Wildenstein at Longchamp, and there were no signs of rustiness or fatigue as he beat 28/1 shot Rosemanover the line by head. Palace Pier, the odds-on favourite, was back in third.