The Group One Kingston Town Classic is to be brought closer to home with the 1800m contest set to be renamed the Northerly Stakes.
A decision to change the name of the race was made by Perth Racing where on Friday they announced the change after a consultation was held with the racing industry as the racing body looked to honour the local hero.
Perth Racing released a statement which explained the change in name.
“As The Pinnacles (the name for the WA carnival) will be a Western Australian themed race series, the initial recommendation was to change the race name to Eurythmic Stakes,” the statement read.
“Eurythmic was the first WA horse to be inducted into the Australian Hall of Fame, however, the feedback was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about celebrating Northerly, a more recent WA champion.
“Many of us in racing have strong memories of watching Northerly win at Ascot Racecourse and Belmont Park, as well as at the highest level nationally. He won back-to-back WS Cox Plates in 2001 and 2002 and retired with career prize money of almost $9.5 million.
“Northerly already has a Group Three race named after him, which will now take on the well-deserved name of Eurythmic.
"The Eurythmic Stakes traditionally run in May will also take on a new name, to be announced at a later date.”
While the great Kingston Town is dislodged from his throne in WA he does still have a race named after him in Sydney with the Group Three Kingston Town Stakes run over 2000m on the same day as the George Main Stakes.
The final winner of the Kingston Town Classic was Regal Power who won the 2021 edition of the race.