Flight Stakes History

The Flight Stakes is a set weights Group 1 race for three-year-old fillies over 1600m run at Randwick staged during the Sydney Spring Carnival.

It is run on what’s known as ‘Super Saturday’ at Randwick where several black type races are run, including the Group 1 Epsom Handicap and The Metropolitan for the stayers.

The race was named in honour of the classy filly Flight, who among her 24 career victories is best remembered for her back-to-back Cox Plate successes in 1945 and 1946 along with the CF Orr Stakes and Champions Stakes (Mackinnon Stakes) both in 1946 too.

Flight also won a Champagne Stakes and Warwick Stakes and defeated some classy stakes gallopers including Bernborough, Shannon and 1946 Melbourne Cup winner Russia.

The Flight Stakes was first run as a principal race in 1947 when it was won by Nizam’s Ring. It was upgraded to a Group 2 event in 1979 when Snowing took the prize.

By 1985, it had grown into a Group 1 affair and that year Tingo Tango took the honours.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Gai Waterhouse (daughter of legendary trainer Tommy Smith) holds the record of most successes in the race, having trained nine previous winners.

Among her winners have been great horses like Assertive Lass (1996), Ha Ha (2001), More Joyous (2009) and the 2015 and 2016 winners Speak Fondly and Global Glamour.

The Flight Stakes is the only Group 1 race for fillies held during the Sydney Spring Carnival and carries prizemoney of $500,000.

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