QIPCO Champion Stakes Rated The Best Race In Europe

The QIPCO Champion Stakes was recognised as the best race in Europe in the 2022 Longines World’s Best Horserace rankings.

The headline race on QIPCO British Champions Day in October, which is also the richest mile and a quarter race in Europe with prize money of £1.3 million, was second in the standings behind the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland, but ahead of the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in third. 

The QIPCO Champion Stakes was won last year by the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Bay Bridge, with jockey Richard Kingscote providing an expertly composed ride. Bay Bridge showed an impressive blend of speed and stamina in the home straight at Ascot to hold off the challenges of high-class contenders Adayar, My Prospero and Baaeed on the latter’s final career start.  

The race was joined in the world’s top five by two other QIPCO British Champions Series contests, both in the mile category, the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes at Newbury and the Qatar Sussex Stakes at Goodwood. 

Both races were won with authority by the William Haggas-trained Baaeed, with jockey Jim Crowley on board, by one and three-quarter lengths. Godolphin’s Real World (Lockinge) and Modern Games (Sussex Stakes) gallantly chased home the Shadwell-owned superstar on those occasions. The Queen Anne Stakes, another race in the mile category and won by Baaeed, was the other Series race inside the world’s top 10 in tied seventh. 

Baaeed, who also won the Juddmonte International over 10 furlongs at York in devastating fashion, was recognised as the highest-rated horse in the world on turf and the best in Europe in the World’s Best Racehorse rankings. He was rated second overall with a rating of 135. After running for the final time on QIPCO British Champions Day, the son of Sea The Stars will this year stand at Shadwell’s Nunnery Stud in Norfolk. 

Speaking to Great British Racing International, Stephen Collins, European Bloodstock Manager of Shadwell Estate Company Limited, commented: “Sheikha Hissa, her family and everyone at Shadwell and Derrinstown are honoured that Baaeed has been crowned the highest rated turf horse in the world for 2022.   

“His racing career was a wonderful journey and he very much caught the public’s imagination with his outstanding talent.  He is a horse of a lifetime!   

“His exemplary pedigree has been developed by the late Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and his family for over 40 years and we are now very excited by the standard of mare he has received in his first year at stud.  Hopefully, he will be as successful a stallion as he was a racehorse.” 

Vadeni, who emerged victorious in an enthralling Coral-Eclipse at Sandown, beating the fast-finishing Mishriff by a neck, was ranked in joint fifth, with connections suggesting he will return to these shores next season. 

Other QIPCO British Champions Series contenders in the top 10 of the rankings include star stayer Kyprios, winner of the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot and the Qatar Goodwood Cup, and Pyledriver, whose win in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot was one of the great underdog stories of the season. Real World, who gallantly chased home Baaeed in the Al Shaqab Lockinge Stakes and the Queen Anne Stakes, was also tied in eighth place with a rating of 124.