The Brocklesby Hunt first met circa 1700 near the Lincolnshire village of that name and became a stronghold for country sports. Ad hoc steeplechases were held from time to time but the first race meeting with a degree of formality was in 1835. Such was the Brocklesby’s fame that a mile and a half race was named after it at the spring 1849 meeting at Lincoln. It was reduced to five furlongs in 1875, and has been run over that distance ever since, moving to Doncaster in 1965 after Lincoln was closed down. Brocklesby Hunt races ended before WW2. The Brocklesby Stakes, despite being the first two-year-old race of the season on turf, retains sufficient status to be something of a target for very early juveniles. Occasionally they go on to better things, such as Donovan (1888), who won the Derby, and Mind Games (1994), a Group 2 winner who sired numerous useful sprinters including Arc winner Tangerine Trees.
The 2016 winner, The Last Lion, went on to take three more races that year, the last of which was the Middle Park at Newmarket. Retired after his two-year-old career, he spent some years at stud before being gelded and returning to the track aged seven.
Chipotle, the 2021 winner, made 4,500 guineas as a foal, 10,000 as a yearling and 210,000 at next year’s autumn sales, having also won the 27-runner Windsor Castle at Royal Ascot and the Redcar Two-Year-Old Trophy. Winning notable races in March, June and October, he was a credit to his trainer Eve Johnson Houghton.
Sources include
Chris Pitt
John Slusar
John Pinfold
Phil Grimstone
A few months after writing the above, this appeared
https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/looking-backward-and-forward-to-the-brocklesby/#.YjbcZg2-4h8.twitter