British Flat racing holds its end-of-season showpiece every October, and the market rarely gets the last word. Champions Day served up a 200/1 Group 1 winner and a 100/1 Group 1 winner on the same afternoon in October 2025. Here are the results that got away from the favourites.
Powerful Glory, 200/1, Champions Sprint 2025
Richard Fahey’s colt was making only his fifth career start when he lined up for the six-furlong sprint on 18 October 2025, one of 19 runners and friendless in the market. Jamie Spencer held him up in mid-division, switched right over a furlong out and got there on the line, beating the 2/1 favourite Lazzat by a neck. Quinault, a 66/1 shot, was third.
No horse had won a European Group 1 at a bigger price since the Pattern was introduced in 1971, and the previous record had only been set in July, when Qirat took the Sussex Stakes at 150/1. Powerful Glory also equalled the mark for the longest-priced winner of any Flat race in Britain, becoming the eighth to score at 200/1.
Cicero’s Gift, 100/1, Queen Elizabeth II Stakes 2025
Two races later the same crowd watched it happen again. Charlie Hills’ five-year-old broke from stall one in a field of 16, hugged the rail and hit the front a furlong out to win by a length and a quarter from The Lion In Winter, with Alakazi third. Field Of Gold, sent off the 13/8 favourite, could finish only fifth.
Hills put the afternoon in context afterwards. “It’s amazing that he’s won at 100-1 and he’s not even the biggest priced winner of the day.”
Anmaat, 40/1, Champion Stakes 2024
The previous October had already produced one for the archive. Anmaat, a six-year-old trained by Owen Burrows, came from off the pace under Jim Crowley and picked his way through in the final furlong to collar the 6/4 favourite Calandagan in the dying strides on 19 October 2024. The Champion Stakes was first run in 1877 and no bigger-priced horse has won it.
Donjuan Triumphant, 33/1, Champions Sprint 2019
Andrew Balding’s sprinter had run in this race three times before without winning it, finishing third in 2018, and he was a 33/1 chance in a field of 17 on 19 October 2019. Silvestre de Sousa sent him for home and he held on by a length from One Master, the 4/1 joint-favourite. It was a first top-level win for King Power Racing, the operation founded by the late Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, and Donjuan Triumphant was the first horse he bought.
Two more for the list
Sealiway was a 12/1 outsider for the 2021 Champion Stakes, a race billed as a duel between Adayar and the 13/8 favourite Mishriff. Mickael Barzalona got the French colt to the front for trainer Cedric Rossi and held Dubai Honour by three-quarters of a length. Mishriff finished fourth, Adayar fifth.
Eight years earlier, Seal Of Approval had gone off at 16/1 for the Fillies and Mares Stakes on 19 October 2013. George Baker brought the James Fanshawe filly from midfield and she went four lengths clear of Belle De Crecy in a field of eight.
What it says about the card
Ascot’s finale packs five Group 1s and a competitive mile handicap into an afternoon that often comes after a long, hard season, on autumn ground that can turn quickly. Proven form counts for less here than the market assumes, which is worth bearing in mind when the horse racing odds for the next renewal go up.