2008 Crown Oaks Betting

The Crown Oaks is the highlight of the third day of the Spring Racing Carnival. Despite being held on the Thursday following the Melbourne Cup, the Crown Oaks sees tens of thousands of Australians take the day off work to attend the race at Flemington Racecourse. In recent years the Crown Oaks has seen its crowds swell more than any other race in the Spring Racing Carnival.

The Crown Oaks was first run in the same year as the inaugural running of the Melbourne Cup, 1961. For many decades the race was a popular, if not particularly well attended, part of the Spring Racing Carnival.

In 1962 the Victoria Racing Club introduced ‘Fashions on the Field’ to attract racegoers to the track, and today the Crown Oaks is one of Australia’s fashion highlights.

The Crown Oaks is contested only by 3 year old fillies. Run over a distance of 2500 meters at Flemington Racecourse, this Group One race comes with an A$750,000 pot.

Crown Oaks Winners

With fillies having only one stab at Crown Oaks glory in their careers, it is difficult to single out runners who made a special impression on the race. However, Rose of Kingston deserves special mention amongst the Crown Oaks winners. Not only did she win the Crown Oaks in 1981, but she also gave birth to one of the Melbourne Cup greats – Kingston Rule.

In the last twenty years two trainers have together claimed almost half of the Crown Oaks winners titles. Bart Cummings trained four Crown Oaks winners from 1989 to 2001 whilst Lee Freedman has taken another four Crown Oaks wins since 1995.

In recent years no jockey has dominated the Crown Oaks with only Damien Oliver taking more than one Crown Oaks win in the past decade. If one looks back further in time one fins that Jim Cassidy is arguably the greatest jockey in the history of the race, having taken two consecutive Crown Oaks victories on two occasions.

2008 Crown Oaks Betting

With 100,000 packed into Flemington Racecourse and millions more watching on television, the Crown Oaks betting is a yearly highlight for punters. Those making use of betting pools will have excellent opportunities to earn good payouts, whilst ante-post betting will be available months in advance for those who prefer fixed-odds 2008 Crown Oaks betting.

For live horse race betting we recommend William Hill, one of the world's leading bookmakers.