The title of Prince of Wales is normally granted to the reigning monarch’s first-born son, but not necessarily straight after the birth. The leaders of the Welsh since 1137 used it, with “prince” replacing “king”, but when Wales came under English rule the title was recreated by Edward I in 1301 to refer to the heir apparent.
BRIGHTON
The first Prince of Wales to be honoured in a horse race title was that of the future Prince Regent and George IV. This was at Brighton, whose first race meeting was in 1783, but “Prinny’s” patronage beginning the following year made it take off.
The cosmopolitan but recklessly fun-loving Prince “brought with him several of the English and French nobility, and also a carnival atmosphere. A challenge was proposed by one of the Frenchmen. He would run half the length of the Steine backwards, versus any man Sir Charles Bunbury should support to run the whole length forwards, for twenty guineas. Sir Charles selected a waiter from the Castle Inn. Soon after the race began, the French noble “flopt, in consequence of some persons hallooing, which he mistook for a signal to halt, supposing he had not started fairly, when the waiter ran by him to the end of the Steine, and claimed the race.” After a stewards’ enquiry the loser offered Sir Charles the twenty guineas, but he refused it and suggested they run again the next morning. But it was wet the next day, so they didn’t bother.” (From Jim Beavis’s book The Brighton Races, 2003).
The Prince’s love of Brighton – and racing – popularised racing at Brighton so much that it became an entrenched part of the fixture list. The sport has continued there ever since.
The introduction of a fixture in April 1971 provoked races named after that Prince of Wales, and his aristocratic ducal friends Orleans and Conflans (qv). The Prince’s race carried on till 19 April 1993, whereas those of his friends continued until 1997.
DONCASTER
There have been numerous Prince of Wales’s Cups over the years, in many sports and competitive arenas. For example, it was the principal trophy at the annual Hackney Horse Society Show held at Doncaster in 1923.
One of them at the Grand National meeting of 1842 was – to quote Bell’s Life, “for horses to be ridden by “real” gentlemen,” as opposed to the other sort. Bertie, the new Prince of Wales, was born to Queen Victoria a couple of months before this Cup race named after him was advertised. He retained that title for sixty years until his long-reigning mother passed away and he at last became Edward VII. By then he had been honoured by other Princely races at Kempton and Lingfield. He was a frequent visitor to the St Leger, a race with a much higher status in those days.
Doncaster’s Prince of Wales Nursery dates from 1877. Before that it was an all-aged contest. For most of its existence it was held on the Friday of the St Leger meeting, when that was the fourth and last day of the festival.
The royal race name was dropped in 1993/94 only to resurface in 1995. The following year it became the Prince of Wales Cup, and the title was preceded by “Ralph Raper Memorial”. Mr Raper, who’d died in 1993, was a bookmaker on the northern courses. He enjoyed a moment of fame in the big freeze of 1962-63 when devising races, with betting, between two white mice.
This arrangement lasted until 1998. The following year the race was sponsored by someone else and in 2000 there was no sponsor at all, though the Cup remained in the race title. In 2001 the Raper family renewed the memorial association, and the race continued as the Ralph Raper Memorial Prince of Wales Cup until 2005.
FAKENHAM
At Fakenham there’s been a Prince of Wales Cup since 1904, when it was known as the West Norfolk Hunt meeting. That was at East Winch, but the course was increasingly criticised and the races moved next year to their present location at Fakenham, 20 miles away.
The West Norfolk meetings had begun at East Winch in 1884 and the organisers strangely hesitated for two years before inviting the Prince of Wales to be its president. “Bertie” was known to love his racegoing and Sandringham was only ten miles away. Royalty provided trophies and brought the family to the races from time to time.
Bertie was King Edward VII by 1904, so a new Prince of Wales Cup was given by the new heir to the throne, the future George V. Nowadays the race is an adjunct to the Light Dragoons Handicap Chase run in May or June.
The West Norfolk Hunt name stuck until 1962/63, though the course had been known as Fakenham as well ever since its move. It was only fitting that in 2002 a new Members’ Stand was named The Prince of Wales Stand and opened by Prince Charles.
In 1996, when it was a handicap chase, it was won by the 13-year-old Sprowston Boy. Nine years earlier he conveyed Gay Kelleway to victory in the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot, the first woman to ride a winner there. The horse was owned by a couple of Norfolk men and named after the road they were born in. Sprowston is a town on the outskirts of Norwich.
CHESTER
The Prince of Wales’s Cup made its first appearance at the course’s spring 1880 meeting, but it positioning at the very end of the three-day meeting suggested it was something of an afterthought. Three runners turned out for the five-furlong dash. The Chester Courant said it “brought a dull afternoon to an end.” Before too long the cup went and it became a mere handicap, and continued thus until 2000.
ASCOT
Ascot’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes was first run in 1862 over 1m5f. Bertie himself first saw the race the year after. Quickly an established feature of the programme, the race didn’t resume after WW2 – possibly with the actions of the previous Prince of Wales in mind, who abdicated ten months after becoming King Edward VIII in 1936 in order to marry his divorced American sweetheart Wallis Simpson.
The race was revived in 1968 with an eye to Prince Charles’s forthcoming investiture the following year. Run over a mile and a quarter since then, its top class winners have included Brigadier Gerard, Mtoto, Dubai Millennium and Ouija Board. The standard in recent years is not quite what it used to be, owing to the proliferation of Group races.
YORK
The future Edward VII was given the title of Prince of Wales a month after his birth in November 1841. That was the catalyst for York to create a Prince of Wales’s Stakes at their August 1843 meeting. A race for two-year-old colts, it drew a huge (for the time) field of eleven. The only other contest that day was a Royal Plate, which went to the Yorkshire-trained mare Alice Hawthorn. It was one of about 50 races that she won.
Latterly the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire Maiden Stakes, over seven furlongs or a mile, at the weekend fixture ten days or so after the Ebor meeting, culminating on 5 September 2007. The regiment itself, formed in 1958, had been amalgamated with others the year before. Despite that, it is one of many regiments with an online shop selling an impressive array of military-themed merchandise and “civvy street accessories.”
Sources include:
Ascot, by Sean Magee
The Brighton Races, by Jim Beavis
https://www.eastwinchandwestbilney.co.uk/history/east-winch-races
https://www.fakenhamracecourse.co.uk/contact/about-fakenham-racecourse/