The Queen’s Prize was inaugurated in 1891, when Kempton was awash with cash from the first 13 years of its existence. Huge crowds of Londoners poured into the course on its Saturday and Bank Holiday meetings. 1891 was not a landmark year for Queen Victoria – the Golden and Diamond Jubilees were in 1887 and 1897 – but a patriotically-named race would always gain kudos.
The Queen’s Prize was a handicap worth £1,000 run over a mile and three quarters at the Easter meeting. That year Kempton also offered a £1,000 Champion Hurdle Handicap at the March meeting and the Great Jubilee Prize of £3,000 in early June.
Before long the Queen’s Prize was moved to Kempton’s Whitsun fixture and became a one mile contest on the Jubilee course, a long spur that joined the round course at the bend into the home straight. By 1900 it had been extended to a mile and a half and moved to Easter Monday. In 1925 it settled at two miles. Entries had to be made at the beginning of January and the weights were published that month, giving two or three months of ante-post betting and speculation about horses’ wellbeing. It was important enough to be covered by Pathe News in the 1920s and 30s. It gradually decline in the second half of the century, but it survives as a Class 2 handicap over two miles on the all-weather track on Easter Monday. At least its traditional date in the calendar has not changed.