RANDWICK GUINEAS News Stories

The Randwick Guineas is Sydney's first Group One race for three-year-olds during the Autumn Carnival.

For the connections of the winning horse, there is more than the one million dollar prize purse up for grabs. That's because the winner of the Randwick Guineas gains automatic entry into both the Australian Derby and the Doncaster Mile- two of Royal Randwick's most prestigious races.

The Randwick Guineas also signifies the first leg of the Australian Triple Crown, a trio races for three-year-olds in Sydney. The Randwick Guineas (1600m) is followed by the Rosehill Guineas (2000m) and the Australian Derby (2400m). 

Winning the Triple Crown is a huge achievement, with only the very best thoroughbred racehorses able to do it. The only two horses to achieve this feat in the pst 25 years were It's a Dundeel in 2012, and Octagonal in 1996. 

One downside for the Randwick Guineas is that it clashes with the Australian Guineas, that is run a week earlier at Flemington. This tends to mean that the best three-year-olds will stay in their respective states, and not compete against one another.

However, with the prestige of being the first leg of the Triple Crown, many argue that the Randwick Guineas is the better race to win. It wasn't always known as the Randwick Guineas though, coming into existence as the Canterbury Guineas in 1935.

Indeed, the Randwick Guineas is special in that it has been run at all four of Sydney's metropolitan racecourses. Canterbury locals will be hoping that that the race one day returns to Canterbury Racecourse, after seeing it contested there for all but three years from 1935 to 2005.