British Champions Day - Queen Elizabeth II, The Queen and Racing

Background to QIPCO British Champions Series and QIPCO British Champions Day

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The QIPCO British Champions Series incorporates Great Britain’s top 35 flat races under one banner to highlight the very best quality of competition the sport has to offer.

The ambition of the QIPCO British Champions Series is to increase the appeal of horseracing in this country and in QIPCO British Champions Day, has created an iconic finale to the British racing season, something the British racing calendar previously lacked.

Some of the world’s leading thoroughbred racehorses, the most talented jockeys and trainers, internationally renowned racecourses and the highest rated races on earth – including four of the top ten races in 2014 come together to create a unique offering for existing and new fans of racing.

The QIPCO British Champions Series reaches its climax on QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot Racecourse on Saturday 17th October.

Staged for the first time in 2011, Champions Day is the single richest day in the British flat calendar boasting £4.1 million in prize money. The prize money is spread across the final races in the five Series categories (Sprint, Mile, Middle Distance, Fillies & Mares and Long Distances divisions) as well as the recently inaugurated Balmoral Handicap.

The race programme is headlined in 2015 by a staggering four Group 1 races – the £1.3 million QIPCO Champion Stakes run over a mile and a quarter, the £1 million Queen Elizabeth II Stakes sponsored by QIPCO and run over the straight mile course, the £550,000 Fillies & Mares Stakes contested over the Derby and Oaks distance of a mile and a half and the £600,000 QIPCO Sprint Stakes, upgraded from a Group 2 last year. These races comprise some of the most valuable races of their kind in Europe.

The Group 2 £300,000 QIPCO Long Distance Cup completes the Pattern race line-up. Despite its official classification, the Long Distance Cup is effectively a Group 1 race considering it has Group 1 conditions such as no penalties for previous Group 1 winning competitors and taking into account its prize money.

Structure of QIPCO British Champions Series

The QIPCO British Champions Series comprises five categories:

  • Sprint
  • Mile
  • Middle Distance
  • Long Distance
  • Fillies & Mares

Each division features the seven highest-rated races in each category in Great Britain which culminate in a same-day finale on QIPCO British Champions Day on Saturday 17th October 2015.

With a collective prize fund of over £17million, the Series is staged across ten of the UK’s leading racecourses:

• Ascot • Doncaster • Epsom Downs • Goodwood • Newmarket’s Rowley Mile • Newmarket’s July Course • Haydock Park • Newbury • Sandown Park • York

The Series encompasses British Flat racing’s key festivals including:

• The QIPCO Guineas Festival • The Investec Derby Festival • The Moet & Chandon July Festival • Royal Ascot • Qatar Goodwood Festival • The Welcome to Yorkshire Ebor Festival 
• The Ladbrokes St Leger Festival

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