FLIGHT STAKES News Stories

The Flight Stakes is one of the feature races on the card on Epsom day, one of the highlight meets of the Sydney Spring Carnival. Contested over 1600 metres, the Flight Stakes is where the fillies come out to play, and vie for the title of Sydney's best young female horse. 

The race was inaugurated in 1947 in honour of champion mare Flight, who was fresh off winning her second consecutive Cox Plate.

Since then it has become a cracking race for the girls, with some of the greatest female horses in Australian racing saluting over the years. The honour roll of past winners includes the likes of Wenona Girl, Research, Sunline, and More Joyous.

The 1,600-metre start at Randwick is a special one, with two of the track's highlight races-- the Doncaster and Epsom-- also starting at the mile marker. To emphasize this connection, the winner of the Flight Stakes is eligible for automatic entry into the following year's Doncaster. 

Because all the horses contest the Flight Stakes with the same weight on their backs, it's a race where the best filly tends to win. This is reflected in the winning odds over the past decade. In this time, six of the ten winners haves started at odds shorter than 3/1. 

The Flight Stakes has also been dominated by father-and-daughter duo T.J. Smith and Gai Waterhouse over the years. Smith trained an incredible 12 winners in the race, while Waterhouse is closing in on that number with 9 winners to her name.