The Wokingham Stakes
The Wokingham Stakes is a Class 2 heritage handicap race run during the Royal Ascot meeting.
The first Wokingham Stakes race was run in 1813, and was named after the town of Wokingham located close to Ascot Racecourse. Despite not having big-race status, the Wokingham Stakes still offers a substantial prize fund.
The Wokingham Stakes is run over a distance of six furlongs on the Ascot flat racing course. The race is open to three-year-old and above thoroughbreds, and is the premier sprint handicap run at the Royal Meeting.
Wokingham Stakes Betting
Handicap races tend to be something of a lottery; however, the Wokingham Stakes has recently shown that betting on a clear favourite may be a good option, with the favourite claiming 1st place in three of the Wokingham Stakes run since the turn of the millennium.
Although Dark Missile managed to take the race at 22-1 odds, this is not a race to back a long-odds outsider, with odds greater than 20-1 proving detrimental to horses’ prospects in all but three races in the last decade.
Wokingham Stakes Winners
Selthurstpark Flyer made the Wokingham Stakes his own during the late 1990s, when his two consecutive wins made him the only horse in recent memory to have captured more than one Wokingham Stakes title. Ratio and Fayr Jag are two Wokingham Stakes winners who deserve special mention for sharing the 2003 title, having finished the race in a dead heat.
Royal Ascot jockeys have been forced to look to other races at the meeting to build their reputations, as not one jockey has managed to put together a series of victories in recent years.
The Wokingham Stakes has also proved to be a challenging title for flat racing’s top trainers to hold on to, with Richard Hannon and Jack Berry the only trainers to have trained two Wokingham Stakes winners. Hughie Morrison came close to catching up with Hannon and Berry in 2007 when Intrepid Jack was pushed into second place by a rampant Dark Missile.
