History
The event was established in 1955, and it was originally held in September. It was created when a race called the Knights' Royal Stakes was renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. The first three winners were all trained in France.
The present system of race grading was introduced in 1971, and the "QEII" was initially given Group 2 status. It was promoted to Group 1 level in 1987.
The race was added to the Breeders' Cup Challenge series in 2008. From this point the winner earned an automatic invitation to compete in the Breeders' Cup Mile. It was removed from the series in 2012.
The Queen Elizabeth II Stakes was switched to October in 2011. It became part of a new fixture called British Champions Day, and its prize fund was increased fourfold to £1,000,000. It now serves as the mile-category final of the British Champions Series.
Read more about this topic: Queen Elizabeth II Stakes
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)