Bletchingly Stakes

Winners and Past Results

The Bletchingly Stakes is a Melbourne Racing Club Group 3 Australian horse race.  FREE $250 Bet

The Bletchingly Stakes is run at the Caulfield Racecourse in late July or early August.

$125,000 are up for grabs in the first group race of the season in Melbourne which is run under weight for age conditions on the Caulfield track.

The event is held in honour of Bletchingly, a former champion thoroughbred racehorse and sire.

The race is the ideal warm up race for a number of horses competing at the spring carnival. Being one of first group races, runners may come in from a spell to take the trophy or may be outnumbered by a winter horse in top form.

The level weight conditions usually favours the best sprinters. Horses that claim the top positions in the Bletchingly Stakes usually compete in the JJ Liston Stakes and Memsie Stakes over the next few weeks. Among the quality gallopers to achieve a Bletchingly/JJ Liston double is Shoot Out the 2010 champion. Among the other quality gallopers to blaze the Caulfield track in the Bletchingly Stakes include Blazing Reality in 1997, Dandy Kid in 2000, Rubitano in 2002, Regal Roller in 2005, and Apache Cat in 2007. You Remember scored back to back victories in 1995 and 1996.

The 1200 meter All Victorian Sprint is a neat form guide leading up to the Bletchingly Stakes. The 2011 champion, Mid Summer Music ran second in the All Victorian Sprint at Flemington Racecourse before winning the Bletchingly Stakes by a short head and followed it up with victory in the Group 3 Cockram Stakes for fillies and mares, another 1200 meter race at Caulfield. Apache Cat followed up his 2007 win in the Bletchingly Stakes with a victory in JJ Liston Stakes and ran second in the Makybe Diva Stakes.

Haradusun, the runner up in 2007, placed well in the Memsie Stakes, and other major Group 1 races including the Turnbull Stakes and the WS Cox Plate.

The Bletchingly Stakes was first held in 1994 as a listed race where Poetic King went down in the record books as the first winner over a distance of 1100 meters. The distance was increased to 1200 meters in 2004.

Due to a number of classy fillies and mares entering the race, the Bletchingly Stakes was elevated to Group 3 in 1997. The race continues to provide punters with their first major betting opportunity of the spring carnival and the perfect indicator for in-form runners that are potential winners and placegetters for the rest of the season.

2011 Bletchingly Stakes

In the final Group race of the season, Mid Summer Music won a weight-for-age event at her first attempt. The mare got back in the early stages and was wide on the turn but she reeled in most of the field before engaging in a desperate fight with Rue Maple all the way to the line. Mid Summer Music held on by a short head, and survived a protest from the runner-up's connections, to take victory with Stanzout coming home well for third.

2011 Bletchingly Stakes result

1. Mid Summer Music
2. Rue Maple
3. Stanzout

Then came:

4. Dusty Star
5. Gold Trail
6. Lady Mahler
7. Second Effort
8. Delayedreaction