Kelt Capital Stakes
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Group I race
Kelt Capital Stakes
Location	Hastings Racecourse Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
Inaugurated	1955
Race type	Thoroughbred - Flat racing
Website	Hawke's Bay Racing
Race information
Distance	2040m (10 furlongs)
Track	Turf, left-handed
Qualification	Three-year-olds and up
Weight	Weight for Age
Purse	NZ$2,000,000

The Kelt Capital Stakes is a Thoroughbred horse race run at Hastings Racecourse in Hawke's Bay and is New Zealand's richest open-age horse race. It is run at a distance of 2040m and from 2007 will carry prizemoney of NZ$2,000,000.

The race is sponsored by Kelt Capital Limited, and in particular the owner thereof Sam Kelt, a strong supporter of New Zealand and particularly Hawke's Bay racing. Just a decade ago the race was a Group 3 event worth under $100,000, but the growth through Kelt's sponsorship has been astronomical.

When The Message won the race in 2000 it was worth $250,000. In 2002 it was run as the richest-equal race in New Zealand for a prize of $500,000, and in 2004 it was New Zealand's first million-dollar race for more than a decade when Balmuse won the race. From either 2009 or 2010, the race will be worth $3 million.

The Kelt is run on the first Saturday in October, along with two other Group features, the Hawke's Bay Guineas for three year olds and the recently bolstered GR Kelt Memorial, making it one of the most important days of racing on the New Zealand calendar. Hawke's Bay's traditionally reliable and warm spring weather makes perfect track conditions almost inevitable.

The race, and its two predecessors in Hawke's Bay's Spring Carnival, the 1400m Mudgway Stakes and the 1600m Stoney Bridge Stakes, both Group 1, have become the main target for not just the spring but the entire season for New Zealand's best weight-for-age gallopers, and the Kelt has become the focus of attention from overseas too. In 2004, the globe-trotting Australian-owned Starcraft arrived at Hastings for all three races, winning the Mudgway and Stoney Bridge before losing in the Kelt at the hands of the Kiwi, Balmuse.

Winners of the Kelt Capital Stakes