Schweppes Oaks

The Schweppes Oaks, registered as the Australasian Oaks, is the premier staying race for fillies during the Adelaide Autumn Carnival.

The $500,000 race over 2000m has long been a race that featured mostly Adelaide-trained runners, but more fillies from across Australia are starting to line up in the staying event.

Despite being listed as the Australasian Oaks, the field is predominately made up of runners from Australia and not New Zealand.

The Schweppes Oaks has a short history with the inaugural running coming in 1982 when taken out by Rose of Kingston.

Legendary trainers Bart Cummings and Lee Freedman have won the Oaks on four occasions, with Cummings' most recent win coming in 1994 with Tristalove and Freedman's coming with Grand Echezeaux in 2000.

Some greats of the Australian turf have won the Schweppes Oaks, including Mannerism, Lights of Heaven and Imposera.

The race record is currently held by Anamato in a time of 2:02.20 in 2007. Mannerism and Imposera would later win the Caulfield Cup, proving that the Schweppes Oaks is a good staying form guide.

Champion British jockey Lestor Piggott had success in 1985 aboard Centaurea.

The last five winners have all been respected in the market and there haven't been any recent upsets. Egg Tart won for Chris Waller in 2017 at odds of 3.00 but she was the second favourite come jump time behind Kenedna for Darren Weir.

Abbey Marie won in 2016 at odds of 7.00, but the market was wide open with the favourite starting at 4.00. That was Silent Sedition which has been the most successful filly to come out of the 2016 edition.

Delicacy scored a win for Perth in 2015. The quality filly won at odds of $7 and the 1.3-length win signalled her intentions to win more Group 1 races.

There were no superstars in behind Delicacy on that occasion and punters had good success with the each way odds on offer from bookmakers.

May's Dream caused bookmakers some headaches in 2014 when landing large bets at 3.20. The Weir-trained filly only narrowly hung on by a nose but punters got their cash.

A quality field was presented in 2012 where most of the money was placed on 3.00 favourite Empress Rock, but it was Invest causing a minor upset at $8.

The only recent upset winner came in 2010 when Small Minds won at 26.00. The John Thompson-trained filly was only a $48,000 purchase at the sales but would win one of the premier staying races in Australia.

The Schweppes Oaks has largely been a favourites race with Lights of Heaven, Gallica, Zarita and Anamato all saluting as favourites in four out of five years.