Last year’s race

• Winner: Fair Angellica
• Jockey: Finley Marsh
• Trainer: Richard Hughes
• Owner: Mrs W Miller
• Age: 4 Weight: 9st 4lbs
• Starting Price: 11/1
• Season Form Figures: 5619485
• Previous Best: 1st - British Stallion Studs EBF Cathedral Stakes (Listed), Salisbury (May 2025)

By Paul Jones

Named after a filly who is the only horse to have won four British Classics outright, the Sceptre Stakes was upgraded to Group 3 status in 2011.

The Classic generation virtually always make up over half the field and three-year-olds have won 32 of the last 43 runnings, including 10 on the trot until Spangled won nine years ago busting a few trends in the process. That said, Fair Angellica led home a 1-2-3-4 for four-year-olds last season.

The promotion to Group 3 status was to encourage higher representation from older fillies and mares in line with other all-aged distaff races following the European Pattern Committee’s policy to upgrade races to tempt owners to keep older fillies and mares in training for longer and they have won six of the last 10 runnings, so that change has certainly worked as far as the Sceptre Stakes is concerned. We had a couple of six-year-old winners towards the end of last century but none since.

Over the last 26 years a dozen winners have started at no bigger than 6/1 (10 of which no bigger than 4/1) but we have had 20/1, 18/1, 14/1 and 11/1 winning returns in four of the last nine years as the race has become more competitive.

This added competitiveness is in line with incentives brought in to keep fillies in training over a decade ago, hence the bigger-priced winning starting prices, and Group-race form has been coming to the fore with 15 of the last 18 winners having ran at Group or Listed level last time out unlike the majority of years following the turn of the century.

Having not long been upgraded from a Listed race, the Sceptre Stakes had previously witnessed little interest from Ireland but John Oxx’s Alanza made a successful trip over on its first rendition as a Group 3 race giving them their first winner of this race since it was first run in 1982. Aidan O’Brien then gave the Irish a second winner six years later, but it’s generally been quiet for them.

Roger Varian (back-to-back wins in 2015 and 2016) and Andrew Balding (trained three of the last eight winners - two for owner, Jeff Smith) have the best recent record.