The inaugural running of the event was on 18 August 1984 as the seventh race on the undercard of Travers Stakes day as The King's Bishop Stakes and was won by Commemorate who was trained by Hall of Fame trainer Lazaro Barrera in a time of 1:223⁄5.

[1] King's Bishop was originally owned by Houston Astros founding president Craig F. Cullinan Jr. and trained by H. Allen Jerkens, who trained the horse to wins in the 1973 Carter Handicap and Fall Highweight Handicap for Allaire du Pont.

[2] Several winners of the race have gone on to win American Champion Sprint Horse honors that same year, including Housebuster (1990), Lost in the Fog (2005), Runhappy (2015) and Drefong (2016).

Hard Spun (2007) went on to top that year's World's Best Racehorse Rankings for three-year-old sprinters.

† In the 2009 event Vineyard Haven was first past the post but disqualified for drifting out in the straight and twice bumping Capt.