The Dante Stakes is a Group 2 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbreds. It is run at York over a distance of 1 mile, 2 furlongs and 88 yards (2,092 metres), and it is scheduled to take place each year in May.
The event is named in honour of Dante, the Yorkshire-trained winner of a wartime substitute Derby at Newmarket in 1945. It was established in 1958, and the inaugural running was won by Bald Eagle.
The Dante Stakes serves as a trial for the Derby, and nine horses have won both races. The first was St Paddy in 1960, and the most recent was Authorized in 2007. The last participant to subsequently win the Derby was Workforce, the runner-up in 2010.
At present, the Dante Stakes is held on the second day of York's three-day Dante Festival meeting.
Read more about Dante Stakes: Records, Winners Since 1976, Earlier Winners
Famous quotes containing the words dante and/or stakes:
“And DANTE searched the triple spheres,
Moulding nature at his will,
So shaped, so colored, swift or still,
And, sculptor-like, his large design
Etched on Alp and Apennine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.”
—William Empson (1906–1984)