The American Stakes is a Grade III American thoroughbred horse race for horses age four and older over a distance of one mile on the turf track held at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California in April.
The event was inaugurated on Independence Day in 1938 as the American Handicap, when Bing Crosby's and Lindsay C. Howard's Argentine bred Ligorati set a new track record of 1:50 for the 1+1⁄8 miles feature on the dirt track before a crowd of 60,000 at Hollywood Park Racetrack.
[1] The event was regularly scheduled for many of its runnings on the Fourth of July holiday attracting massive crowds especially in the 1950s and 1960s.
The race was not run in 1942 or 1943, due to Hollywood Park being closed.
The South African import Colorado King equalled the then-current world record for 1+1⁄8 miles in winning the 1964 edition.