Fancy hats and fast horses: The King’s Plate is back for its 164th race
North America’s longest continually run horse stakes race is in Toronto on Sunday, with a name it hasn’t used in more than 70 years.
After spending the last seven decades as the Queen’s Plate, the King’s Plate is being held at Woodbine Racetrack in Etobicoke — named in honour of Britain’s ruling monarch, who is now King Charles. Despite the name change, attendees can still expect a day filled with high fashion, pageantry and, of course, racing.
For Morgan Cameron Ross, the sheer age of the event, which began in 1860, makes it a special occasion. Cameron Ross runs the website and social media pages Old Toronto Series and was hired by Woodbine Entertainment Group to create a short documentary for this year’s event.
“The only relatively similar thing is the Canadian National Exhibition, which is younger but also hasn’t been done every year,” Cameron Ross said. “[The King’s Plate] is kind of an elaborate, fun, consistent thing across the history of the city.”
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The King’s Plate was last run in 1951. Since then, it has been known as the Queen’s Plate. But with King Charles now on the throne, Woodbine Racetrack is once again hosting the race named in the honour of the ruling monarch.
This year will mark the 164th edition of the race, according to Jim Lawson, CEO of Woodbine Entertainment Group. It will be the first race since 1951 to be named the King’s Plate. The main event will kick off at 5:39 p.m., while other races will begin at 12:25 p.m.
A sport ‘steeped in tradition’
Lawson says horse racing is a sport “steeped in tradition.” And a main element of that tradition, race-day fashion, will be on full display Sunday.
The race’s website has a style guide for attendees filled with photos of light suits, long dresses, hats and fascinators.
For the uninitiated, a fascinator is “a fascinating little object on one’s head,” according to David Dunkley, the official milliner — hat maker — of the event for the past 11 years.
His job is to create a couture collection of headwear that acts as style inspiration for those heading to the race.
This year, Dunkley’s created the “Coronation Collection” to celebrate the change in monarch.
“There’s lots of feathers, there’s lots of tiaras, lots of sparkle, lots of grandness,” he said. “It’s a coronation. So I felt that it should be slightly over the top and big, which the pieces are.”
Dunkley says the King’s Plate is one of the most formal events on the horse racing calendar.
“It being attached to the monarch affords the ability for it to be formal. So I think people just like to dress up. It’s really fun,” he said.
Besides the formality of the day, Lawson says other time-honoured traditions include the royal representative arriving by horse drawn carriage, a telegram being sent to Buckingham Palace stating the race’s winner and a prize of 50 guineas — a defunct British gold coin — donated by the monarchy.
This year’s representative will be Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the lieutenant-governor of Ontario.
More than a century of history
The race began in 1860 after the Toronto Turf Club petitioned Queen Victoria to grant a plate for a race in Ontario, according to the event’s website. Beginning in the 17th century, King Charles II — who was king of England, Scotland and Ireland — began awarding silver plates as racing prizes.
In the present day, the winner of the King’s Plate receives a gold cup.
“The pageantry has been there since the beginning,” said Morgan Ross, the historian. “It’s always been this event that people go over the top [for].”
The first time a reigning monarch actually attended the event was in 1939, according to Morgan Ross, when King George VI visited.
“Just to put it in perspective of how old [the race is], in 1939 it had already been around for eight decades,” he said.
In 2010, Queen Elizabeth visited the race and Lawson, with the Woodbine Entertainment Group, got to meet her.
He says they talked about horse racing and breeding.
“It wasn’t to show me that she had the knowledge. She was genuinely curious. … she was just a lovely, lovely woman,” he said.
After her death in September 2022, Lawson says it was a difficult decision to rename the event, partially because of her support for the sport.
“We’ll be honouring her [today] in comments that are made and we’re going to find other ways to honour her at the appropriate time,” he said.
