King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Qipco Stakes: Favourite and most memorable editions
Ed Chamberlin – Nashwan (1989)
There are so many memories, this used to be such a massive occasion - the King George - and I love nostalgia and these throw-backs. This year's race potentially is a bit of a throw-back really to the 1980s as the Derby winner used to turn up every year - it was just like a given.
There was Shergar in '81, through to Dancing Brave who GC will come onto to, and then Reference Point won it and Mtoto won. But my favourite of the lot was '89 which was round three of Nashwan against Cacoethes, Willie Carson against Greville Starkey - a rematch from the Derby.
Nashwan had won the Derby with Cacoethes third that day at Epsom I think, but they served up a proper battle in the straight. It wasn't quite Grundy versus Bustino but it wasn't far off.
The modern equivalent was Enable against Crystal Ocean but with an enormous crowd, the noise was just incredible as these two pulled clear of some good horses.
It was just a right old ding-dong and it's just hard to describe just how big the King George was in the 80s, it was now just a summer showpiece but absolutely at the forefront on Grandstand. It was a big, big event.
Graham Cunningham – Dancing Brave (1986)
Ed sums up the atmosphere around the King George in the 80s’ really nicely and ’86 was a belter too.
If you know, you know, but if you’re relatively young, this was how it went…
The Derby one-two – just like this year with a sense of unfinished business – Dancing Brave was almost certainly given too much to do in the Derby and didn’t quite get past Shahrastani, who had gone on to bolt up in the Irish Derby.
He was heavily backed – so was Dancing Brave, but Shahrastani went off favourite. But you had these other elements that are also quite probable for this weekend in that we have world-class older horses, we had the previous winner, Petoski, and he had two pace-makers.
You’ve got to watch the race to believe how they (pace-makers) were ridden, they went like their arses were on fire right from the start and they were both being whipped by halfway, to go even faster, the jockeys would have been in big trouble nowadays, and the field was strung out.
We also had a top-quality globe-trotting French filly in Triptych, we had Shahrastani’s high-quality older-horse stablemate Shardari, and one by one, the pace-makers cracked obviously, Shahrastani cracked after two-out, Triptych could never really land a blow, nor could Petoski, then there were two.
Shardari never gave in but Dancing Brave – so unlucky at Epsom and had won the Eclipse in the meantime – swooped down the outside under Pat Eddery, replacing the injured Greville Starkey.
Was it a great race? Well, the second and the third then dominated the finish to the Matchmaker International, which was the first renewal of what’s now the Juddmonte International, Triptych went on to win the Champion Stakes – it was a stellar race in every respect – and of course Dancing Brave went on to win the Arc.
It was a fantastic race and if you get chance to watch it back you’ll see back in the old days they certainly didn’t mess about with pace-makers! They sent them hard and sent them early.
Billy Nash – Alamshar (2003)
It's been mentioned that we have nine Group 1 winners in this year's King George, well Alamshar went one better as there were 10 Group 1 winners in the 2003 renewal.
He won't be remembered as one of the best King George winners but he was brilliant on the day. I was lucky enough to be working in the (John Oxx) yard at the time so it has massive personal connection for me, but when you look back at the race, Alamshar went there having lowered the colours of the mighty Dalakhani in the Irish Derby prior to that.
And look at the field he beat - and he beat them comprehensively - Sulamani was second and he'd finished second in the Arc the previous year and went on to win a number of Group 1s afterwards; you had Kris Kin the Derby winner who was third; Bollin Eric was the previous year's St Leger winner; you had the brilliant Falbrav back in fifth and he won five Group 1s that year including the Eclipse; Warrsan was sixth and he's won the Coronation Cup; Nayef was seventh and he'd won the Princes of Wales's Stakes.
It was a fantastic race and I suppose what made it extra special was that at the time, Irish trained horses didn't have a great record in the King George. Vincent O'Brien had won it in 1977 with The Minstel, but only St Jovite in '92 had won it for Ireland, for Jim Bolger, and Aidan had won it for the first time with Galileo in 2001.
So it was unknown territory for us, but it'll be a race that'll live long in my memory anyway.
David Johnson – Harbinger (2010)
No prizes for guessing I’d be with Harbinger, who remains in illustrious company based on the Timeform rating (140) he achieved in winning in 2010.
It was one of those performances that live long in the memory, when you’re watching it you just find it hard to believe that a horse is capable of doing what he does.
Obviously that was one of those showdowns between what we hoped was going to be a high-quality four-year-old against the three-year-old Workforce, which was a bit of a throwback as we’d got out of the habit of seeing the Derby winners taking in the King George, but Harbinger winning by 11 lengths in the style that he did, smashing Generous’s record margin for the race of seven lengths back in 1991, and beating the likes of Cape Blanco who went on to win the Irish Champion Stakes next time, was just awesome.
There were a couple of sad ‘what-might-have-beens’ regarding this race as if Sea The Stars had stayed in training as a four-year-old he could well have been taking part in the race, and rather than this being Harbinger’s first step as proving himself an all-time great, he never ran again after fracturing a cannon bone on the gallops and was retired to Japan.
So we never really got to see how good Harbinger could have been, but on this day he definitely looked a quality, quality animal.
Matt Brocklebank – Enable (2019)
Unlimited race replays of all UK & Irish racing
Access to exclusive features all for FREE - No monthly subscription fee
Log in with your existing Sporting Life, Sky Bet, or Sky Games account. If you don't have any of those, it's completely FREE to register!
The one that really sticks in the mind would be Nathaniel’s King George in 2011 but it was also absolutely tragic due to Rewilding breaking down in front of the stands.
It was pretty dramatic up ahead too as Workforce was hanging into the centre of the course and Nathaniel was doing what he did best and grinding out a hard fought-win under a young William Buick. That was memorable alright, but not one of the Ascot executive will look back on too fondly.
Enable is the only triple King George winner and her middle success had substance to it – “that was a horse race!”, Simon Holt absolutely nailed it with his sign-off in 2019.
Two five-year-olds, at full maturity, going at it from the two-furlong pole and the mare just doing enough to capitalise on her 3lb sex allowance to beat Crystal Ocean.
That was definitely a hairs on the back of the neck job for me, which doesn’t happen all too often these days.
- Racecards
- Fast results
- Full results and free video replays
- Horse racing news
- Horse racing tips
- Horse racing features
- Download our free iOS and Android app
- Football and other sports tips
- Podcasts and video content
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org
