VRC Carbine Club Stakes 2024 Tips, Betting Odds, Past Winners & Results

The Carbine Club Stakes is a Group 3 race of 1600 metres for any gender of galloper.

The race is held at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne during the spring racing carnival. Oversight for the race belongs to the Victoria Racing Club. 

The race is overshadowed to a degree, because it is currently run at the same meeting known as Victoria Derby Day, where the Group 1 races – the Victoria Derby, the Coolmore Stud Stakes and the Empire Rose Stakes receive most of the attention.

 

Carbine Club Stakes Race Details

Date: 2/11/24

Time: TBA

Racecourse: Flemington

Race Distance: 1600m

Conditions: TBA

Prize Money: $500,000

How To Bet On The Carbine Club Stakes

Our Top 3 Recommended Online Bookmakers To Bet With For The Carbine Club Stakes:

Ladbrokes

Palmerbet

Unibet

Carbine Club Stakes Betting Tips

1. Tips Will Be Updated Closer To The Race

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When Is The Carbine Club Stakes: 2/11/24

What Time Is The Carbine Club Stakes: TBA

Where Is The Carbine Club Stakes: Flemington Racecourse

How To Live Stream The Carbine Club Stakes

To live stream the Carbine Club Stakes, TAB Account Holders can watch the race live.

More Details About The Carbine Club Stakes

The running conditions for the race are set weights plus penalties and the prizemoney, just ahead of the 2022 jump, is $500,000. The prizemoney figure represents a hefty boost above the $200,000 the race was worth in 2018, so winners of the race from 2019 forward, so when Fangirl won the race in 2021, her prize for first place was $300,000, more than the race offered prior to 2019.

We did not locate a video of Fangirl winning the Carbine Club Stakes, but she has since broken the Group 1 threshold when she won the Group 1 Vinery Stud Stakes at Newcastle Racecourse in March of 2022.

So, for all of you Fangirl fans, here is a replay of that race win, which incidentally, paid less for a Group 1 win than did the Group 3 win in the Carbine Club Stakes. 

 

History of the Carbine Club Stakes

Carbine was a New Zealand galloper that won or placed in 42 of 43 jumps during the latter years of the 19th century, including a win in the 1890 Melbourne Cup. He made an equally larger or larger contribution as a stallion, where his blood has contributed to gallopers that collectively earned millions of dollars.

So important is Carbine to the history of Australian racing that he currently has two races run in his honour. The other Carbine Club Stakes is a Group 3 race held during the autumn at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney under the supervision of the Australian Turf Club.

The race we are examining is the Victoria Racing Club version.

It jumped for the first time in 1982 and was unrated at the time. The race achieved Listed grade in 1983 and remained at that level until 1998, when Group 3 grade was conferred.

The trip for the race has always been 1600 metres and the race has always been staged at Flemington.

Venue for the Carbine Club Stakes

Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne requires little by way of explanation.

Racing along the flats of the Maribyrnong River was recorded as early as 1840, which is given as the historical date for the inception of the Flemington Racecourse.

Of course, the Melbourne Cup is the most famous and prestigious race jumping at Flemington. Other important races are the Victoria Derby, the marquee race on day the Carbine Club Stakes is staged.

We have an entire webpage devoted to Flemington at another location.

The track is an egg-shaped oval. For 1600-metre races like the Carbine Club Stakes, the racers jumps from the middle of the back straight and are soon running a sweeping turn that leads into the home straight and concludes at the finish line on the north side of the course in front of the stands.

Racing History of the Carbine Club Stakes

Compared to some of the elite races on the Australian Thoroughbred racing calendar, the Carbine Club Stakes is a newer race that lacks the vast history of the main events.

Still, it has been won by some true notables and we doubt that we will find any winners that were there simply due to luck, as it takes some ability to win a Group 3 race.

We will look at the list with eyes peeled for Group 1 winners or winners that beat the exceptional horses of the time, along with any that contributed to the furtherance of Australian racing through their services at stud.

Since the Carbine Club Stakes is age restricted, there will be no multiple winners of the race. There have never been any dead heats or occasions when something prevented the race from jumping.

Often, when looking at newer races that have been promoted from lower grades, we find a winner that makes us wonder what that winner was doing in the race.

This sense of wonder is doubly present with the Carbine Club Stakes because there were two winners that could jigger us to ask the question.

The first of these is the very first winner of the race in 1982.

It was Emancipation that won the first running.

Emancipation was a filly by Bletchingly out of Ammo Girl, so right there are some instant credentials. On her sire’s side, it was Biscay as grandsire and the ubiquitous Star Kingdom that sired Biscay.

On the Ammo Girl side, her sire was Gunsynd, with a further line to Star Kingdom, so it was no surprise that Emancipation was a good one and no surprise that she won 19 races and placed in one from 28 starts.

More’s the surprise that she had those eight unplaced results.

She won six Group 1 races in Sydney, with most of her major wins falling between the years of 1982 and 1984. If we had to name two races that seem to be her best wins, we would pick the Doncaster Handicap in 1983 and the All Aged Stakes in 1984.

None of Emancipation’s progeny was exceptional, with the possible exception of Royal Pardon by Vice Regal that won about $425,000. A couple of her daughters, Virage and La Suffragette, produced Group 1 winners Virage De Fortune by Anabaa and Railings by Zabeel.

The next winner from 1983 was Wage Freeze.

He was a New Zealand horse with lines to Canada’s Sound Reason that was sired by Bold Reason. In the lines of his dam was Bold Ruler, so some of the best northern hemisphere lines contributed to Wage Freeze’s success. We can think of No Reason to think otherwise.

Wage Freeze was sent to the U.S. in 1985 and his story vanishes from that point.

Brave Salute won the Carbine Club Stakes in 1984.

Like Wage Freeze, his lines were predominantly northern hemisphere. He was sent to Thailand in 1990, but he did leave a progeny record that included two that won above $130,000 and another from 1989 named Sword Of Honour that won above $200,000.

Shankhill Lass from 1985 was a New Zealand mare that was also largely connected to the northern hemisphere, primarily Great Britain and Ireland.

She was good enough as a racer to earn over $300,000, but we did not find a progeny report for her.

A gelding named Warned won in 1986.

He would go on to have other good wins, including a Group 1 win in a race in 1987 that was named the Ampole Stakes.

Top Innings won the race in 1987.

He won five races and placed in 12. The Carbine Club Stakes was his highest graded win. Top Innings was a decent stud and his best would appear to be Arion out of Sweetly in 1984 that won a big number of money in South Korea that exchanges at current rates for about $873,000 AUD.

Another New Zealander with mainly northern hemisphere lines was the 1988 winner, Wonder Dancer.

He won the Group 1 Australian Derby in Western Australia and the Group 2 Apollo Stakes in NSW. He was an adequate sire after his racing was done, at least in terms of quantity. Many of his offspring were unraced or unplaced and only Future King out of Blazing Dollar in 1992 managed to win good stakes, coming in around $200,000.

Submariner was the winner in 1989.

His best win was the Group 1 VATC Show Day Cup in 1990, a race better known as the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes, although the registered name for the race is the Invitation Stakes. He supplied racing with 11 geldings and 2 mares, but nothing truly significant.

The next winner was Pre Record in 1990. His best win came the following year when he won the Group 2 Hobartville Stakes at Rosehill.

The gelding Rapan Boy won the Carbine Club Stakes in 1991.

After winning the race as a three-year-old, he wandered the world and race in the U.S. and Hong Kong. He won a Grade 3 race as a six-year-old racing in California.

We skipped the next three years, because the winners from those years were average and it leaves us with more room to look at the second of our What-was-this-one-doing-in-the-Carbine-Club-Stakes horses.

The 1995 winner was none other than Saintly.

This 1992 gelding by Sky Chase out of All Grace was truly the one that we would never have predicted to win the Carbine Club Stakes.

He was a Bart Cummings galloper that won over $3.8 million from 23 jumps for 10 wins and 11 placings, with just two unplaced jumps.

He was the Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year for 1997 and a 2017 inductee into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.

In 1996, he won the Australian Cup, the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup. The Cox Plate win was a narrow one over Filante, but the Melbourne Cup win over Count Chivas was by over two lengths and the final win of his career, the Group 1 C. F. Orr Stakes was a fairly easy one, too.

Were it not for Octagonal, Saintly would have had additional Group 1 wins in the Rosehill Guineas, the Mercedes at Rosehill and the AJC Derby at Randwick. Filante beat Saintly out of Group 2 wins in the Chelmsford and the Warwick Stakes.

Skipping some average geldings and mares brought us to 1999, the year a New Zealand horse named Over won the Carbine Club Stakes.

He won over $2.1 million and needed only 20 jumps for eight wins and six placings in which to do it. The Carbine Club was his first major win and he had good results in better races until he won the 2000 Group 1 Doncaster Handicap, where he was good enough on the day to beat none other than Sunline. She got him back next race in the All Aged Stakes at Randwick.

After Over’s racing career was over, he went on to be a prodigious sire. An impressive number of Over’s children won nice money, with the best being a 2002 gelding out of Rosita’s Gem named The Jonker that won over $740,000. Quite a few others won above $100,000, but the thing that leaps off the page at us is just how many won something and the number is far more than those that were unraced or unplaced.

Inspire was a gelding that won the race in 2000.

He won over $715,000 and while he was nothing exceptional, we instantly like him for trying 76 races. Most of his earnings came in the twilight of his career when he took the 2005 Magic Millions Cup at Gold Coast.

A significant winner from 2002 was Delago Brom by Encosta De Lago.

Delago Brom won almost $900,000, but only made 10 jumps for four wins and two placings. The final jump of his career saw him winning the Group 1 Cadbury Guineas at Flemington in 2003.

With Encosta De Lago for a sire, Delago Brom was a prolific sire, although nothing truly exceptional beyond Delgado Bolt out of Bardego in 2006 that won over half a million dollars.

We found a Group 1 winner in the 2009 Carbine Club Stakes winner Kidnapped. He raced internationally and had a Group 1 win in the 2010 Group 1 South Australian Derby and a Group 2 win in the Sandown Guineas. He was a gelding.

The New Zealand galloper Kermadec was the winner in 2014.

Kermadec won almost $3 million form just 17 jumps for four wins and seven placings. He had Group 1 wins in the 2015 Doncaster Handicap and the George Main Stakes. His final race was a third place run in the Group 1 All Aged Stakes at Randwick in 2016, where he was narrowly beaten by English and Black Heart Bart.

He has been standing since 2016 and his top progeny was a filly named Montefilia out of Banu Wu in 2017 that has won over $2.3 million.

The winner from 2015, Mahuta, was okay, but the lion’s share of his $1.7 million in earnings came from his win in the 2016 Magic Millions 3YO.

Comin' Through was the Carbine Club Stakes winner in 2016.

A gelding by Fastnet Rock, Comin' Through won the Group 1 Doomben Cup in 2018.

The winner from 2017, Levendi, won at Group 1 grade in 2018 when he won The Derby at Randwick in 2018.

Dalasan from 2019 is still racing, according to current information.

He has won over $3.5 million and while he does not claim a Group 1 win, he has so often been near the front that he did not need a major win to earn major money.

Crosshaven was the winner of the Carbine Club Stakes in 2020.

Currently aged five years, Crosshaven is a gelding by Smart Missile from Irish Colleen. He does not have a Group 1 win, but he has managed to place in some better races, including a third in the 2021 C. F. Orr Stakes behind Streets Of Avalon and Imaging.

The Carbine Club Stakes supplied us with better winners than we expected.

Emancipation and Saintly are the two most notable, but other winners have been good types that while not exactly household names, would have been familiar with the punters of the time.

Carbine Club Stakes Past Winners