History
The event is named after Park Hill, an estate formerly owned by Anthony St. Leger, the founder of Doncaster's most famous race, the St. Leger Stakes. The Park Hill Stakes was established in 1839, and it was originally restricted to three-year-old fillies.
The victory of Blink Bonny in 1857 provoked a riot among spectators who believed she had been dishonestly prevented from winning the previous day's St. Leger.
The present system of race grading was introduced in 1971, and the Park Hill Stakes was initially given Group 2 status. It was opened to fillies and mares aged four or older and relegated to Group 3 level in 1991. It was promoted back to Group 2 in 2004.
The Park Hill Stakes is currently held on the second day of Doncaster's four-day St. Leger Festival. It is sometimes referred to as the Fillies' St. Leger.
Read more about this topic: Park Hill Stakes
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“The only thing worse than a liar is a liar thats also a hypocrite!
There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (18221896)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (19121989)