Run over a mile and restricted to three-year-old fillies, the Coronation Stakes has held Group 1 status since 1988 and is currently scheduled as the second of two top-level contests on the fourth day of Royal Ascot, the other being the Commonwealth Cup. Like the Commonwealth Cup, the Coronation Stakes is worth £650,000 in guaranteed prize money, but its history is much, much older. In fact, the race was established in 1840, two years after the coronation of Queen Victoria, which it commemorates.
Indeed, the long, illustrious history of the Coronation Stakes is reflected by some of the records in the race. Nat Flatman and Morny Cannon remain, jointly, the leading jockeys with five winners apiece, but rode their last winners in 1851 and 1898 respectively, while the leading trainer, John Porter, also saddled the last of his six winners in 1898.
More recently, and perhaps more usefully, since 2016 four outright favourites have won the Coronation Stakes and all bar two of the winners were returned at single-figure prices. However, Watch Me (2019) and Cercene (2025) were sent off at 20/1 and 33/1 respectively, so it may not pay to be entirely dogmatic about market trends.
Not altogether surprisingly, eight of the last 10 winners of the Coronation Stakes previously ran in the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, the Irish 1,000 Guineas at the Curragh or the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches at Longchamp. The exceptions were Alpine Star (2020), who was making her seasonal debut, having won the Debutante Stakes at the Curragh the previous August, and Inspiral, who also had not run since winning the Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket the previous October.