Queen Elizabeth Stakes 2026 - A Race Built on History, Champions and Change

Kristen Manning

Editor

Last updated: Thu 09 Apr 2026 13:03

Kristen Manning 09 Apr 2026

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Saturday's Queen Elizabeth Stakes features UK's Dubai Honour against top Aussie horses
Dubai Honour aims to join legends like Carbine and Winx with multiple Queen Elizabeth victories
The storied race dates back to 1851, evolving from a 4800m test to a competitive 2000m feature

Jockey Hugh Bowman returns to scale after guiding Winx to victory in the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Royal Randwick. (Getty)

An exciting battle between some of Australia's best horses looms in Saturday's Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes, with interest added by the reappearance of the UK visitor Dubai Honour.

Legends Of The Turf
Honouring The Monarch
The Partypoopers!

This is the third time he has contested this 2000m feature, game in defeat (splitting Via Sistina and Tom Kitten) off a wide run last year and proving too strong for Mo'unga and Anamoe in 2023.

Likely to again run a cheeky race, having run so boldly in the Group 1 Tancred Stakes a couple of weeks ago, Dubai Honour seeks to add his name to an impressive list of horses who have won the Queen Elizabeth Stakes on multiple occasions.

Timely then to have a look at those horses.

A race with a varied history, the race began its life in 1851 as a 24 furlong (4800m) contest called the Queen's Plate, and the first four runnings were won by two horses; Cossack (also winner of the AJC St Leger, which is recognised as being Australia's oldest Classic, first run 20 years before the first Melbourne Cup) taking out the first two and Sportsman the next couple.

Tarragon (one of a revitalised Randwick's first stars — the track had closed in 1838, reopening in 1860), Tim Whiffler (very confusingly one of four horses named that around the same era, including one of this one's sons — rules regarding naming not coming in until 1911) and Dagworth (described at the time as "a stylish looking horse, when in motion, though rather sleepy looking in the stable") all claimed multiple runnings of the race during its era as a staying test.

Legends Of The Turf

As did Chester (who would go on to be Australia's Champion Sire on four occasions), Poitrel (the Melbourne Cup winner sparingly raced by the time's standards due to his brittle feet) and the legendary Carbine, all of whom claimed multiple runnings of the race during its era as a staying test — as did one of the latter's best daughters, La Carabine, and his classy grandson Trafalgar (three times amongst his 39 career victories).

Though it was not as much a test of stamina as AJC committeemen wanted, and after being frustrated by the slow pace of some runnings, a clause was added to the conditions of the race in 1908 — one that decreed that prize money would be halved if the race was run over a certain time.

In the early 1920s, David won the race three times — his first two over the 24 furlongs and in 1923 over the shorter trip of 18 furlongs (3600m).

One of the best stayers of his time, he was later renowned as one of Australia's best sires of hurdlers and steeplechasers.

Windbag (disparagingly named due to his noisy breathing — something that did not hinder him on the racetrack or as a stallion) and Limerick (the first of those amongst his 22 wins in a 17-month period) both won the race twice in the 1920s.

By the mid-1940s the Queen's Plate was a 14 furlong (2800m) race, with Russia (a horse who took 17 starts to break his maiden, going on to win another 22 races including the 1946 Melbourne Cup) successful on two occasions.

Honouring The Monarch

It was in 1954 that the race took its current name, one which was put in place to honour the visit to Australia by a reigning monarch.

And Queen Elizabeth was on course that day, Blue Ocean saluting at such a price that the following day's paper described it as "the season's greatest turf boilover."

The newly named race's first multiple winner was one of the greats of the Australian turf — Tulloch, successful in 1958 (a year after Tommy Smith had declared him to be "the greatest horse in the world"), 1960 and 1961.

The last of those three wins came in his final campaign, and it was his first win in four months, with papers reporting that "Tulloch won to a background of wild cheering and clapping."

"The cheering started about a furlong from home and the crowd was still applauding when jockey G (George) Moore rode Tulloch into the winner's stall and dismounted."

When the pattern system came to be, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes was granted Group 1 status, in 1979 for the first time run over its current trip of 2000m.

news — Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh drive along the Randwick course, surrounded by horses and crowds, Sydney, February 13, 1954. (Getty)

The Partypoopers!

It was not until 1997 and 1999 that we saw the first dual winner of the race at that trip — Intergaze.

That durable chestnut, who tackled the race four times, had a link with the next two-time winner in Grand Armee (2004 and 2005).

Both horses were somewhat party poopers, Intergaze as a three-year-old in 1997 defeating Octagonal, who was having his final start, whilst Grand Armee seven years later beat Occie's son Lonhro, who was also having a much publicised finale.

Winning three in a row was Winx between 2017 and 2019, whilst visitor Addeybb saluted in 2020 and 2021.

The latter also won the Group 1 Ranvet Stakes, and should his stablemate (both horses trained by William Haggas) Dubai Honour salute, he will have won more Australian Group 1 races than any other northern hemisphere-trained horse.