Robert Sangster Stakes - A Family Legacy Etched in Racing History

Kristen Manning

Editor

Last updated: Thu 23 Apr 2026 04:20

Kristen Manning 23 Apr 2026

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The Robert Sangster Stakes, a race for fillies and mares, has strong ties to the Sangster family legacy
First run in 1983 and achieving elite Group 1 status in 2005, the race has a storied history and high-caliber participants
The Sangster legacy extends deep into South Australia's racing scene, with many successful ties cultivated over decades

Robert Sangster (right), captain of the European Team, with Sheikh Mohammed, captain of the Middle East Team, after the European Team’s win at Sussex on 8 May 1999. (Getty)

Group 1 racing heads to Morphettville on Saturday and one enthusiastic racegoer on course will be Adam Sangster, who each year looks forward to a race run in memory of his father, the influential owner and breeder Robert Sangster.

Longest Sponsorship
Cup Winners

The $1 million Group 1 Robert Sangster Stakes, a sprinting contest for fillies and mares, was first run as the Swettenham Stud Stakes at Morphettville in 1983 - quickly upgraded to Listed status for its next two runnings, then 18 times as a Group 3 contest, once as a Group 2 and - since 2005 - as a Group 1 race.

Adam, who followed in his father’s footsteps as a keen contributor to Australian racing, owns and oversees Swettenham Stud - the Nagambie farm established by Robert Sangster and Colin Hayes in 1995 and named after Sangster’s Cheshire farm purchased in 1964.

The family enjoy close ties to South Australia, making Morphettville an apt location for the race, which was renamed the Robert Sangster in 2005 following his death in April the year before.

sangster news — Robert Sangster (centre) with Queen Elizabeth II and Lord Sam Vestey at Newmarket in 1997. (Getty)

Longest Sponsorship

“Prior to that, the Swettenham Stud Stakes was one of the longest continuously sponsored races on the calendar,” Adam noted, proud of the way in which the race has “risen through the ranks.”

“You’d love to own every runner and later have them in your paddock for breeding - the race always attracts a high-class field and is won by mares who go on to bigger and better things before producing some great progeny.”

The race has certainly proven a fertile ground for broodmare success. 36 of its winners have been at stud long enough to have runners, and of those, 14 have produced 17 stakes winners, including the Group 1 gallopers Accomplice and Estijaab.

“The connection between the Sangster family and South Australia has always been very strong and continues to be so,” Adam said, noting that “my wife is South Australian and we go back a lot.”

“My father’s first Group 1 winner in Australia was the 1979 Adelaide Cup with Panamint and, back in the early 1980s, South Australia was probably the number one breeding centre in Australia, with my father, Coolmore and Colin Hayes organising the first shuttle stallions.”

It was a decade later that Adam ventured Down Under, with David Coles (South Australian Jockey Club chairman and Australian Racing Hall of Fame member - the man who looked after Robert Sangster’s Australian interests) becoming his mentor, providing more ties to South Australia.

Cup Winners

Many of Robert Sangster’s horses (including his 1980 Melbourne Cup winner Beldale Ball) were trained in South Australia, calling Lindsay Park home, and he also enjoyed success with Adelaide boy Bart Cummings.

Panamint was a member of the Cummings stable but, at the time of his Adelaide Cup success, the master was serving a three-month suspension and it was Colin Graves (who, Adam said, “I still see when I go over to the Adelaide sales”) who took training honours, though Bart was still on course celebrating.

Another great Adelaide moment for the Sangsters was when their home-bred filly Wicked Smile - daughter of the great Vain - won the Swettenham Stud Stakes (then a Group 3 race) in 1987.

That was a particularly big day for Lindsay Park, with trebles in three states, with other winners for Sangster including Midnight Fever in a Group 3 Blue Diamond Prelude and Kaapstad in the Group 3 National Stakes.

“The Robert Sangster Stakes means a lot to my whole family,” Adam said, “and we look forward to being there on Saturday.”