The C.F. Orr Stakes Story: Champions, Tradition, and Transformation
The C.F Orr Stakes is a legendary horse race with a rich history, having been hosted at various venues since its inception at the Williamstown track in 1925. Known for featuring top-tier horses, its winners have included champions like Saintly and Manikato. The race has been a platform for notable sire lines and has seen multiple trainers and jockeys make their mark. The 2025 race boasts connections to past champions, reflecting its enduring legacy in Australian horse racing.
- C.F Orr Stakes: Historic race with multiple venues since 1925
- Features champions like Saintly, Manikato, and modern winners
- Links to notable horse families and celebrated trainers
Redoute's Choice, ridden by Darren Beadman, winning the 2000 C.F Orr Stakes in front of Miss Pennymoney. (Getty)
The C.F Orr Stakes – A Great Race Whenever and Wherever it is run!
- The C.F Orr Stakes – A Great Race Whenever and Wherever it is run!
- The Night Patrol – A Worthy and Apt First Winner
- Champions From the 50s to the 2000s
- 2025 Links to the Past
Not too many feature races have had as many homes as the C.F Orr Stakes, which plays a role in extending Caulfield's spring carnival by taking place on a day that used to belong to Sandown.
As did the race back when it was run in February before a shift to Caulfield in 1997; the year it was won in magnificent fashion by Saintly (his final start) who was having his first run since taking out the previous spring's Melbourne Cup.
Not that it was the first C.F Orr run at Caulfield, which had hosted the race from 1949 to 1996.
It has also been run at Flemington and Moonee Valley, though it had its beginnings at the now-defunct Williamstown track where it first took place in 1925, remaining at that bayside course until World War II.
The Night Patrol – A Worthy and Apt First Winner
From day one it has been a race for good horses, the first edition taken out by The Night Patrol, who had claimed the 1924 W.S Cox Plate. Somewhat underrated by history, that popular and versatile galloper also won two editions of the William Reid Stakes as well as a Cantala (now Champions Mile).
It was a fitting first winner for this weight-for-age contest, with The Night Patrol raced by the then Governor of Victoria (the Earl of Stradbroke), whose great, great, great grandfather Admiral Rous devised the weight-for-age scale.
The Night Patrol was the first of six descendants of the famed matriarch Chelandry to win the Orr (Heroic, Iva, Flight, St Razzle, and Dissident the others), and she has a descendant going around on Saturday — the Annabel & Rob Archibald-trained Bosustow.
The second running was also taken out by a topliner, the 1922 VRC Derby hero Whittier still in great form as a seven-year-old having won the previous year’s Caulfield Cup... also taking out that staying feature at three.
The first of his Caulfield Cups was a rather memorable one — the day the meeting went ahead despite the members’ grandstand burning down that morning!
Heroic won the third C.F Orr, another champion with this race on his record. And he sired another of its winners, his son Hua successful in 1938.
High Caste was another high-class winner of that era, whilst the best winner of the 1940s was Flight, her win coming between her two Cox Plates.
Champions From the 50s to the 2000s
Comic Court returned from his 1950 Melbourne Cup victory to win the C.F Orr second-up, having won the William Reid Stakes over 1200m when resuming; a versatile horse he was!
As was the champion Rising Fast, who recorded his third-last victory in this race in 1956.
A horse who loved to win the same races on multiple occasions, Lord was successful in 1959 and 1960.
That decade saw the likes of Wenona Girl, Aquanita, Tobin Bronze, and Winfreux win the Orr, whilst the 1970s saw such winners as All Shot, Leilani, Surround, and Hyperno.
And of course the machine that was Manikato — the first of two triple (1979 to 1981) C.F Orr winners, with the bold front-runner Vo Rogue also accomplishing that feat between 1988 and 1990.
Just before Vo Rogue’s wins, At Talaq had been in winning form for the last time, his success coming at his first start since taking out the Melbourne Cup.
Repeating that feat in 1992 was Let’s Elope, the double also won by Jeune in 1994/1995 (though there was his unplaced run in the Japan Cup in between) and by Saintly in 1996/1997.
Durbridge was the first winner of the Orr as a Group 1 race in 1993, whilst the 2000s kicked off with a win by Redoute’s Choice (his last win), who is the most successful stallion by numbers on the Orr honour roll.
Though Heroic, with lesser representation, can put his hoof up as he was crowned Australian Champion Sire on seven occasions.
Lonhro is another Champion Sire to have won the race, and other winners of his era include Elvstroem and El Segundo.
Typhoon Tracy won two editions, and after her came the half-siblings Black Caviar (the only time she was stretched to 1400m) and All Too Hard, whilst Redoute’s Choice joined Heroic as an Orr winner to sire an Orr winner when Alabama Express proved too good for the older horses in 2020.
And the 2024 race is one of the ten elite-level victories recorded by Mr Brightside, who ran second last year to Another Wil.
2025 Links to the Past
Links with this year’s runners include sire line (Another Wil is a grandson of Street Cry, as are Jimmysstar, Evaporate, and Pinstriped; the latter by Another Wil’s sire Street Boss) and a family connection (Mighty Ulysses is a descendant of Courtessa, third dam of Lonhro’s sire Octagonal... and this is the same Lady Josephine family as the 1965 Orr winner Future) whilst Redoute’s Choice is the dam-sire of Vinrock.
The race’s equally most successful trainer Peter Moody (five wins) doesn’t have a runner, but Ciaron Maher (Jimmysstar) is going for two in a row, as is Jamie Melham (Evaporate). Her husband Ben rides Angel Capital having been aboard Dissident in 2015.
Michael Dee on Vinrock is also going for a second Orr, having been on Alabama Express, whilst Mighty Ulysses’ rider Luke Currie is hoping for a third having steered Suavito and Manuel to victory in 2016 and 2019.
Lindsay Park hope Evaporate can win, having succeeded with Mr Brightside — on that day becoming the third generation of the Hayes family to win the Orr.
None of the other five trainers, including Chris Waller, have won the race.
Betting offers
Upcoming Events
22 August 2026
- Winx Stakes -
- Horse Racing
29 August 2026
- Memsie Stakes -
- Horse Racing
31 August 2026
Load More
