British Champions Day: British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes analysis and preview 

Ascot racecourse will stage Britain’s richest race day, as 2025 British Champions Day gets underway in under two weeks’ time. 

Seven races – highlighted by five Group One races – headline a day that sees champions crowned and over £4m awarded in prize money. 

Race four on the card is British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes, which will run at 14:45pm on Saturday, October 18

A mile and half of Ascot’s iconic turf must be negotiated, as horses look to etch their name into history and yards seek a share of a prize money worth £500,000.

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Minnie Hawk

This year’s renewal looks set to feature a host of horses that ran in the Prix d’Larc de Triomphe on their latest start, as Minnie Hawk and Kalpana both feature in the betting – despite both suffering defeat in Paris. 

Minnie Hawk is trading at 4/1 to win this race following her second-placed effort in France – where she was the beaten-favourite – whilst Kalpana is at 10/1 after finishing seventh. 

The former announced herself on the big stage by winning the Epsom Oaks as part of a top-two finish – featuring Whirl (12/1 for this race) – for trainer Aidan O’Brien.

That run was preceded by the Cheshire Oaks on her seasonal debut, which was the second leg of a subsequent Oaks four-timer, with wins in the Yorkshire Oaks and Irish Oaks too this season. 

Quisisana

Kalpana has strung together some good runs in defeat, notably behind Whirl in the Pretty Polly Stakes at The Curragh.

Trainer Andrew Balding’s filly has also placed behind both Calandagan and Los Angeles, at Epsom and The Curragh, in a campaign that directly follows her win in this race last season. 

French raider Quisisana is another fresh from the Arc and she is set to make the journey over the English Channel for the first time. 

She has been campaigned exclusively in France, where she is a six-time winner from nine starts – the highlight being her maiden Group One win on her penultimate run. 

That run completed a hat-trick of wins this campaign, though the other two came against inferior company and she finished ninth in the Arc, on her latest outing. 

Quisisana is 10/1 to win this race, as she looks to make Francis Graffard the first French trainer to win this race since 2020. 

Estrange

However, at the top of the market is Estrange, who was scratched from running in the Arc last week. 

Her trainer, David O’Meara, said: “We’re all devastated. She worked earlier in the week and worked great, and it looked like the rain was coming for her, which was ideal.

“This morning she was coughing after exercise, and I scoped her and she was dirty – we don’t have enough time to get her cleaned up.”

She has won two of her three runs this season, with back-to-back victories in Group races – at Haydock – preceding a second-placed effort behind Minnie Hawk, in the Yorkshire Oaks. 

On whether she will be ready in time for Ascot, O’Meara added: “We’ll see, it would be a guess – I just don’t know.

“We’ll put her on some antibiotics, and just keep her ticking over, and see where we are in a week or so.”

Waardah

Waardah is the second-favourite and trades at 7/2 to win the British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes. 

This lightly-raced three-year-old has won three of her five career starts for trainer Owen Burrows – including back-to-back wins at Goodwood on her latest two starts. 

The former was a Listed race, but the latter came in a Group Two race at Glorious Goodwood, which was her first try in a Group race. 

She has been off the track since, but defeated Danielle in that latter run, a horse that lines up at 7/1 for this race. 

Joint father/son trainers John and Thady Gosden have seen this filly place second and fourth since coming back from almost a year off the track. 

Both races were Group Two contests, and though the former showed a lot of promise in defeat, the latter flattered to deceive. 

She has won only one race, which was a Class Five Novice event at Wetherby over a year ago.  

Tiffany is next in the betting – at 10/1 – for trainer Sir Mark Prescott. 

Her last two runs – though almost a year apart – ended in second-placed efforts in German Group One races. 

They followed a third-placed effort in this race last year, which came at the back end of season in which she won a Group Three race at Newcastle, as well as both a Listed and a Group race, in Germany. 

READ MORE: British Champions Day: Long Distance Cup analysis and preview