History
The July Stakes is the oldest surviving event for two-year-olds in the British flat racing calendar. It was established in 1786, and it was originally open to horses of either gender. The conditions initially stipulated that those horses sired by Eclipse or Highflyer should carry an additional weight of three pounds.
The present system of race grading was introduced in 1971, and for a period the July Stakes was classed at Group 3 level. The event was restricted to colts and geldings in 1977, and it was promoted to Group 2 status in 2003.
The July Stakes is currently held on the opening day of Newmarket's three-day July Festival meeting. The equivalent race for fillies is the Cherry Hinton Stakes.
Read more about this topic: July Stakes
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)