Everything You Need to Know About the Vintage Crop Stakes
Once again this year, BAR 1 Betting is proudly sponsoring the Vintage Crop Stakes at Navan Racecourse.
The 14-furlong Listed race, which will carry €52,500 in prize-money, will be run on Saturday, April 25th. It is great to be involved for the second successive year.
What is the Vintage Crop Stakes?
The race is named after a horse that won 16 races for trainer Dermot Weld, among them two Irish St Legers and, unforgettably, the 1993 Melbourne Cup.
Ridden to victory by Michael Kinane, he became the first European-based horse to win the “Race That Stops A Nation”.
First staged in 2003, the Vintage Crop Stakes has been won by some of the greatest staying racehorses we have ever seen.
Notable past winners
For example, the 2007 winner Yeats went on to win five Group 1 races, including three Ascot Gold Cup and a Goodwood Cup. He won seven Group 1 races in total.
Three-time Vintage Crop winner Kyprios followed his 2022 Navan success by winning the Ascot Gold Cup, Goodwood Cup, Irish St Leger and Prix du Cadran — all Group 1 races. He repeated wins in each of those races, including the Vintage Crop, in 2024. Not the easiest to keep sound, he was an extraordinary racehorse, brilliantly handled by trainer Aidan O’Brien.
Other winners include Kastoria (2006), who went on to win the Irish St Leger; Alandi (2009), who went on to win the Irish St Leger and Prix du Cadran; Fame And Glory (2011), who landed the same year’s Ascot Gold Cup (he won five Group 1 races in total); Voleuse de Coeurs (2013), who went on to win the Irish St Leger; Leading Light (2014), who won the Ascot Gold Cup on his next start (he also won the 2013 English St Leger), and Order Of St George, who finished second in the 2017 Vintage Crop (but won it in 2018) and was then beaten a short head in the Ascot Gold Cup but galloped to victory in the 2017 Irish St Leger just over eleven weeks later.
Just for good measure, Twilight Payment, who won the 2020 Vintage Crop (run that year at Curragh Racecourse), landed the Melbourne Cup five months later.
Other races on the Navan card
Other races on the Navan card are also worth keeping an eye on.
The Group 3 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Salsabil Stakes was won in 2024 by Ezeliya, who went on to win the Oaks at Epsom Downs Racecourse. Runner-up to her in County Meath was Purple Lily, who then finished third in the Irish Oaks, while Bellezza (fifth in the Salsabil) landed a Grade 2 race in the USA before running well at the valuable and prestigious Breeders’ Cup meeting in America.
Last year’s Salsabil was won by Wemightakedlongway, who then finished fourth in the English Oaks and second in the Irish Oaks, while the runner-up, Catalina Delcarpio, finished third in the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes at Ascot Racecourse on her next start. The third, Island Hopping, went on to finish third in the Irish Oaks.
The 5f180y two-year-old maiden on the Navan card was won last year by Charles Darwin, who went on to win the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot, while the 2024 winner, Camille Pissarro, landed the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère at ParisLongchamp Racecourse in October and, last year, the French Derby.
Givemethebeatboys, last year’s winner of the card’s Committed Stakes (Listed Race), went on to land a Group 3 race, while the third, My Mate Alfie, also won a Group 3 contest.
Vintage Crop Stakes race day information
It promises to be another informative and classy day of racing at Navan on Saturday, April 25th. The first of eight races is due off at 1.20 pm.
