They were routinely the two richest races held in the U.S. every year, their gross values exceeding any of the three Triple Crown events.

Three horses are memorialized with markers at Montpelier. The most famous of these is Battleship, who in 1938 provided Mrs. Scott with a victory in the Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree. The 1969 Hall of Fame inductee remains the only horse to win both that race and its American equivalent, and is the most recent non-gelded male to land the prize. Battleship later sired champion steeplechasers War Battle and Shipboard.