British Champion Stakes Preview, Tips, Runners & Trends (Champions Day)

Updated: 2973 Horse Racing

Explore key trends and past winners of the British Champion Stakes, a 1m2f race at Ascot's Champions Day. Discover insights on successful runners, trainers, and jockeys to help predict the next champion in this prestigious flat racing event.

British Champion Stakes Preview, Tips, Runners & Trends (Champions Day)
In this article: Preview
Andy Powell Content Editor

Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years - An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.

2025 British Champion Stakes Preview

The British Champion Stakes is a Group 1 race that is held during Champions Day at Ascot in October. The race is run over 1m2f and is open to three-year-olds and older.

The winner of the race gets an invitation to compete in the Breeders Cup Turf. The race sees plenty of back-to-back winners with Alborada (98-99), Twice Over (09-10) and Cracksman (17-18) as well as nine before those!

British Champion Stakes Information:

Our dedicated Ascot tips page will not only bring you predictions from the OLBG racing tipsters for the upcoming card that includes the British Champion Stakes but will also have predictions for each meeting at Ascot throughout the season so be sure to head over there. You may also be interested in other preview blogs that we have packed full of information, head down to the Schedule for British Champions Day at Ascot section for links to these.

How competitive is the British Champion Stakes market? When looking at the over-rounds for the last 14 renewals, the most competitive market was in 2021 when the race had an over-round of 112%. The race in 2015 was a race that was most in the bookie's favour with an over-round of 122%, whilst on average over the last 14 renewals of the British Champion Stakes, the over-round has been 117%, which means the bookie expects to pay out £100 for every £117 which is bet.

British Champion Stakes Trends:

Looking at the future form, is the winner worth following next time out? From the past 14 if you had followed the winner of the British Champion Stakes next time out then you would have backed a total of 2 winners. Backing all 9 runners who have been out since to win at SP next time out, would have returned an LSP of -6.00. Before placing your bet on the 2025 British Champion Stakes see which other runners today are being backed on the racing predictions page.

When looking over the past 14 renewals, a time of 2:02.52 was set by Cirrus Des Aigles in 2011, which is the quickest time over that period, the runner was trained by Mme C Barande-Barbe and ridden by Christophe Soumillon. The slowest winning time was set in 2020 when Addeybb won in a time of 2:12.29, booked to ride was Tom Marquand by the trainer William Haggas.

These are the top three quickest-run British Champion Stakes over the last 14 renewals:

  1. Cirrus Des Aigles (2:02.52) in 2011
  2. Almanzor (2:05.94) in 2016
  3. Fascinating Rock (2:06.31) in 2015

British Champion Stakes Past Winners

Here are the British Champion Stakes' past winners for the last 10 renewals. Each row details the year of the race, the horse which won along with the age & weight of the horse. Also detailed is the stall where the horse came from and the total number of runners in the race. The horse's trainer and the jockey at the time of winning the British Champion Stakes are also displayed, along with the starting price at which the horse was sent off.

YearHorse (Drawn)Info
2024
2:08.96
Anmaat (IRE)
6yo 9-7 (5 of 11) 40/1
Jim Crowley
Owen Burrows (GB)
2023
2:08.42
King Of Steel (USA)
3yo 9-3 (1 of 8) 3/1F
Frankie Dettori
Roger Varian (GB)
2022
2:09.46
Bay Bridge (GB)
4yo 9-7 (4 of 9) 10/1
Richard Kingscote
Sir Michael Stoute (GB)
2021
2:08.31
Sealiway (FR)
3yo 9-1 (3 of 9) 12/1
Mickael Barzalona
Cedric Rossi (FR)
2020
2:12.29
Addeybb (IRE)
6yo 9-5 (11 of 10) 9/1
Tom Marquand
William Haggas (GB)
2019
2:08.42
Magical (IRE)
4yo 9-2 (8 of 9) 1/1F
Donnacha O'Brien
A P O'Brien (IRE)
2018
2:08.79
Cracksman (GB)
4yo 9-5 (8 of 8) 5/6F
Frankie Dettori
John Gosden (GB)
2017
2:11.75
Cracksman (GB)
3yo 9-1 (4 of 10) 13/8F
Frankie Dettori
John Gosden (GB)
2016
2:05.94
Almanzor (FR)
3yo 9-0 (1 of 10) 11/8F
Christophe Soumillon
J-C Rouget (FR)
2015
2:06.31
Fascinating Rock (IRE)
4yo 9-5 (7 of 13) 10/1
Pat Smullen
D K Weld (IRE)

Where have the winning runners come from?

Here are the countries where the winning trainers of the British Champion Stakes have been based:

  • GB: 9 winners with an additional 12 placings from 87 runners
  • FR: 3 winners with an additional 5 placings from 16 runners
  • IRE: 2 winners with an additional 8 placings from 27 runners
  • GER: 0 winners with an additional 0 placings from 2 runners
  • CZE: 0 winners with an additional 1 placing from 1 runner
  • JPN: 0 winners with an additional 1 placing from 1 runner

British Champion Stakes Trainer Statistics

The leading trainer in the British Champion Stakes over the last 14 renewals is John Gosden who has won the race two times with those two winners coming from Cracksman (2017 & 2018).

Here are some of the top British Champion Stakes trainer statistics over the last 14 renewals (R = Runners, W = Winners, P = Places including winners, Win LSP is based on 1pt Win and EW LSP is based on 0.5pt Win & 0.5pt Place):

TrainerR-W-PWinEW
John Gosden16-2-4-11.54-10.72
A P O'Brien19-1-7-17.00-11.84
William Haggas14-1-4-4.00-2.80
Sir Michael Stoute7-1-3+4.00+1.97
Mme C Barande-Barbe4-1-3+9.00+5.91
Roger Varian4-1-1+0.00-1.20
Saeed bin Suroor4-1-1-0.25-1.35
J-C Rouget3-1-1-0.62-1.17
D K Weld2-1-2+9.00+5.75
Owen Burrows1-1-1+40.00+24.00

British Champion Stakes Jockey Statistics

The leading jockey in the British Champion Stakes over the last 14 renewals is Frankie Dettori who has won the race three times with those three winners coming from Cracksman (2017 & 2018) and King Of Steel (2023). The only other jockey to have recorded multiple wins in the British Champion Stakes is Christophe Soumillon (2 wins). There is one jockey who has not had the best of times in the British Champion Stakes, Ryan Moore has ridden 11 runners to the race without recording any wins.

Here are some of the top British Champion Stakes jockey statistics over the last 14 renewals (R = Runners, W = Winners, P = Places including winners, Win LSP is based on 1pt Win and EW LSP is based on 0.5pt Win & 0.5pt Place):

JockeyR-W-PWinEW
Frankie Dettori8-3-3+0.46-1.72
Christophe Soumillon6-2-3+9.38+4.68
James Doyle9-1-3-1.00-1.70
Jim Crowley5-1-1+36.00+20.00
Tom Marquand5-1-2+5.00+4.10
Silvestre De Sousa5-1-1-1.25-2.35
Mickael Barzalona4-1-2+9.00+5.10
Richard Kingscote2-1-1+9.00+5.00
Tom Queally2-1-1-0.82-0.89
Ryan Moore11-0-6-11.00-5.44

British Champion Stakes Trend Analysis

The trend factor which had produced 7+ winners and shows the best LSP, an LSP of +50.31 is when runners had a furthest trip placed of 1m2½f. The worst performing factor that has failed to produce a single winner is when runners had 0 career places in the class, when backing these the trend shows a record of 0-37.

Here are the most recent winning draws along with the further placings in brackets:

  • 2024: Winner in 5 (1,2) [11 Runners]
  • 2023: Winner in 1 (9,2) [8 Runners]
  • 2022: Winner in 4 (6,7) [9 Runners]
  • 2021: Winner in 3 (10,6) [9 Runners]
  • 2020: Winner in 11 (1,6) [10 Runners]

The course which has produced the most winners of the British Champion Stakes is Longchamp, there has been a total number of 4 winners of this race who ran at Longchamp last time out. The next best course which has produced the second most winners is Leopardstown, there has been a total number of 3 winners of this race who ran at Leopardstown last time out.

The race is open to both sexes with the Male runners having produced a total of 13 winners from a total of 119 runners whilst the Female runners have produced 1 winner from a total of 15 runners.

Looking over the past renewals, these are the stallions whose offspring have produced multiple winners of the British Champion Stakes:

  • Galileo (3 Wins)
  • Frankel (2 Wins)
  • Pivotal (2 Wins)
  • Wootton Bassett (2 Wins)

These are the stallions whose offspring have not produced a winner of the British Champion Stakes despite multiple attempts:

  • Dubawi (0 Wins from 5 runners)
  • Sea The Stars (0 Wins from 5 runners)
  • Shamardal (0 Wins from 5 runners)

Looking at the winning odds over the last 14 renewals, the biggest-priced winner was Anmaat in 2024, winning for Owen Burrows at odds of 40/1 under the guidance of Jim Crowley. Looking at the runners at the head of the market over the last 14 renewals there have been 6 winning favourites in the race. Before placing your bet on the 2025 British Champion Stakes head over to see which other runners today are being backed by the best racing tipsters today.

Schedule for British Champions Day at Ascot

Here is the schedule for the British Champions Day at Ascot, each race will be linked to the race blog and detail last year's winner in the table below.

RaceLast WinnerInfo
British Champions Long Distance CupKyprios (IRE)
6yo - 8/11
A P O'Brien
Ryan Moore
British Champions Sprint StakesKind Of Blue (GB)
3yo - 10/1
James Fanshawe
James Doyle
British Champions Fillies Mares StakesKalpana (GB)
3yo - 100/30
Andrew Balding
William Buick
Queen Elizabeth II StakesCharyn (IRE)
4yo - 13/8
Roger Varian
Silvestre De Sousa
British Champion StakesAnmaat (IRE)
6yo - 40/1
Owen Burrows
Jim Crowley
Balmoral HandicapCarrytheone (GB)
7yo - 14/1
Michael Bell
Christophe Soumillon

Article Contributor Information

We are blessed with an excellent team of specialists and experts at OLBG. Contributing to creating and maintaining this British Champion Stakes Preview are at hand, Andy and Darren. They both work on the Horse racing tips team team looking after the tipsters and managing the tips settlement, whilst also creating and managing all of the horse racing event previews for Flat Racing.

Darren Brett

Darren Brett

Tipster competition manager

Darren has worked in the horse racing industry for decades bringing to OLBG for the last 20 years a wealth of knowledge, creating much of our content on these sports. Darren also manages our Grand National Guide and is the go-to font of knowledge for the world's greatest steeplechase.
Andy Powell

Andy Powell

Content editor

Andy, a seasoned horse racing expert with over 15 years of experience, possesses a comprehensive understanding of the sport, from delving into complex statistical data for flat racing in the UK and Ireland to crafting insightful flat racing blogs for OLBG.

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