Lillie Langtry Stakes Betting

Offering five full days of Thoroughbred racing and social events to rival the Royal Ascot meeting held in June, the Glorious Goodwood Festival takes place each year in late July or early August. Day Three is Ladies Day, when throngs of celebrities, racing fans and fashionistas gather at the Sussex Downs dressed in full regalia. The day’s race card features the £100,000 Goodwood Cup and the £70,000 King George Stakes, and joining them since 2003 is the £70,000 Lillie Langtry Stakes.

Open to Thoroughbreds fillies and mares aged three years and upwards, this Group 3 flat race covers a distance of one mile and six furlongs on the right-handed turf of the Goodwood Racecourse. Three-year-olds carry a weight of eight stone six pounds, while those aged four years or older must bear nine-stone-six.

Penalties are applied to those who have finished first in meetings since 1st November of the previous year. They amount to seven pounds for Group 1 winners, five pounds for Group 2 winners and three pounds for Group 3 winners. However, a penalty exemption is made for any two-year-old wins.

When this event was first established in 2003, it was classified at the Listed level and registered as the Gladness Stakes. The race had the backing of Vodaphone and EBF. The following year, the official name was changed to the Lily Langtry Stakes, honouring a British actress who was mistress to King Edward VII, and the event was elevated to Group 3 status. The published race name, however, remained the Vodafone Fillies’ Stakes.

In 2005, sponsorship was withdrawn and the race’s title was again changed. This time the misspelling was corrected and the event became know as the Lillie Langtry Fillies’ Stakes. In 2008, a new sponsor was found in Moët Hennessy. To this day, the title on the race card is the Moët Hennessy Fillies’ Stakes, with the registered name being the Lillie Langtry Stakes.

Despite the relative newness of the race, one winner has already succeeded here twice. That honour goes to Tartouche, the Lady Herries-trained bay mare that outran all of her competition in 2005 and then again in 2006. The jockey on both occasions was Seb Sanders, who also won the inaugural race aboard Moments of Joy, making him the only three-time victor in the Lillie Langtry Stakes.

The event has not been in existence long enough for any major trends to develop, and the big-name trainers have just one win apiece. Sir Michael Stoute trained first-place finisher Hi Calypso in 2007 and Henry Cecil as responsible for the 2009 winner Sevenna. Mark Johnston added one of his own mares to the honour roll in 2010, as four-year-old Eastern Aria paid 16/1 in winning handily by 2¾ lengths.

In fact, all of the winners thus far have been between three and five years—a trio each for the three- and four-year-olds and a pair for those aged five. The only favourite among them was Hi Calypso, rated jointly with runner-up Wannabe Posh at 3/1.

On the other hand, Eastern Aria’s win at double digits was no fluke. In 2004, Astrocharm delivered at odds of 12/1, and when Sevenna romped home first, it was at odds of 12/1. Clearly the bookmakers have not quite figured out the Lillie Langtry Stakes yet, and that is likely to remain the case as long as the race is contested primarily by entries from smaller stables.

Go To bet365

#Ad

Related Events