by Jim Haynes
Acrasia was owned by colourful Sydney bookmaker Humphrey Oxenham, who bred her from his Sydney Cup-winning mare Cerise And Blue. He famously lost her to Lord Cardigan’s owner, John Mayo, in a card game on the eve of the Caulfield Cup and bought her back for £2000. Lord Cardigan, carrying 6 st 8 lb (41.5 kg), had defeated the mighty Wakeful, carrying 10 st (63.5 kg), in the Melbourne Cup the previous year.
The tables were turned by the fair sex in 1904 with Lord Cardigan, carrying 9 st 6 lb (60 kg), chasing home Acrasia, carrying 7 st 6 lb (47 kg). The tough mare equalled Carbine’s race record, but sadly, Lord Cardigan ruptured himself in his effort to catch her with his big weight and died several days later.
After Acrasia’s win there was a gap of seventeen years before another female horse, the filly Sister Olive, won the great race in 1921. Then there was an even longer gap of eighteen years before Rivette came along to make history in 1939.
Rivette had an interesting pedigree: she had the great sire Isonomy on both sides through her two granddams, and her dam, Riv, was a granddaughter of Carbine’s Epsom Derby-winning son Spearmint. Isonomy started fourteen times for ten wins, two seconds and a third, and his wins included two Ascot Gold Cups, in 1879 and 1880. He then became a highly influential sire.
Rivette was bred, owned and trained by an amazing man, Harry Bamber. Oddly enough, the only other Cup winner to be bred, owned and trained by one man was the first female winner, the black filly Briseis, who was owned, trained and bred by Jim Wilson, of the famous St Albans Stud near Geelong.
Harry Bamber was the archetypal ‘battling trainer’. He was a blacksmith by trade and served in the Light Horse in World War I. As a dairy farmer on a soldier-settler block he studied veterinary science, and he and his brother and a friend bought Rivette’s dam for 200 guineas at auction. She was originally named Riverside and raced as a ‘14.2 hand pony’, winning many races on the unregistered tracks.
Bamber thought the little mare was good enough to race against thoroughbreds. She had the required pedigree, although she was not in the stud book, so he raced her at Sandown and she duly won. At registered meetings she raced as Riv, since the name Riverside was not available.
The Depression forced the Bamber brothers off their farm, and Harry milked cows to pay the agistment for his mare and her foals, the second of which was Rivette.
Bamber then acquired stables at Mordialloc, and his training techniques were considered quirky. He walked his horses and didn’t over-train them, but kept them in work far longer than other trainers. In fact, he trained much more like a ‘pony’ trainer than a thoroughbred trainer.
Rivette did not start at two as she was injured while training on the road. She had her first win at Packenham late in her three-year-old season and was being prepared for the Caulfield–Melbourne Cups double of 1938 when she cut herself badly while rolling on the beach and had to be spelled.
The following year she was in training from February right through to the Melbourne Cup. She started ten times in welters and handicaps and never missed a place. When the pressure was on she responded and, on that odd preparation, easily won both the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, making history by being the first mare, and only the third horse, to do so. Had she not completely missed the start in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup, in which she finished third within a length of the winner Gilltown, she would undoubtedly have made more history by being the first horse to win all three Cups.
At the Melbourne Cup presentation ceremony she kicked the holy grail out of Harry Bamber’s hands, but he didn’t mind one bit. ‘She set me up for life,’ the battling trainer said.
Rivette had a career severely interrupted by injury, but she was a good hard racehorse who made history in winning the Cups double in the early, dark days of World War II. Her offspring were not registered, as she was not eligible for the stud book.
Racing was severely interrupted in the eastern states during the war, and completely banned in South Australia, which certainly affected the career of Rainbird, the next mare to win the Cup, just after the war ended in 1945.
Rainbird was owned by South Australian racing identity C.H. Reid, whose brother had bred the mare. Rainbird’s dam, Sequoia, was a daughter of the great Australian champion Heroic, and she was by the imported stallion The Buzzard, who also sired the 1940 Cup winner, Old Rowley. The Buzzard was a son of Epsom Derby winner Spion Kop, who was himself a son of an Epsom Derby winner Spearmint, who was by Carbine. It is an amusing reflection on Australian prudery that The Buzzard raced, quite successfully, in Britain as The Bastard. His name was changed when he came to Australia.
When racing was closed down in South Australia in 1942, Rainbird’s trainer, Sam Evans, moved to Victoria where he trained the filly to win the Wakeful Stakes of 1944 and run an unlucky second in The Oaks.
Rainbird went home to win the 1945 South Australian St Leger, the first since 1941, and her training schedule was again interrupted by lack of shipping at the end of the war. Most trading vessels had been taken over by the navy and took ages to return to normal duties, which meant Rainbird did not arrive back in Melbourne until late September. Although ‘under done’ she ran a good second in the Caulfield Cup.
She then ran unplaced on a heavy track in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup, and Evans thought that the only thing that could prevent her winning the Melbourne Cup was rain. Like the later great champion Rain Lover, Rainbird was, ironically, a duffer in the wet! The weather stayed fine for the big race, however, and she won the Cup easily by 2½ lengths.
Rainbird went on to win the Port Adelaide Cup and ran second in the Sydney Cup, before heading to the breeding barn where she was a great success. Her daughter Raindear won the South Australian Oaks, and her descendants include the great sire Centaine, the good staying mare Allez Wonder, and many others.
The well-named mare Evening Peal won the Cup a decade after Rainbird, in 1956. She was by the great sire Delville Wood out of Mission Chimes, and had the Spearmint/Carbine/Musket bloodline on both sides of her pedigree.
She was a bonny mare who won eleven races from 51 starts. Her wins included the Wakeful Stakes and the VRC, Queensland and AJC Oaks (then known as the Adrian Knox Stakes). She often raced against mighty horses like Redcraze and Rising Fast and carried a record-winning weight for a female of 8 st (50.5 kg) to beat Redcraze, carrying 10 st 3 lb (65 kg), by a neck in record time in the Melbourne Cup of 1956.
The New Zealand mare Hi-Jinx had one of the least distinguished records of any Melbourne Cup winner. She started three times only in Australia, running unplaced in the Caulfield Cup and a good second in the Moonee Valley Cup before winning the historic 100th Melbourne Cup at 50 to 1.
There was great hype around the 100th Cup and record prizemoney. Hi-Jinx’s win was an anticlimax for the crowd, who had hoped to see the mighty Tulloch carry 10 st 1 lb (64 kg) to victory. Tulloch, who had returned to racing after two years spent overcoming a crippling illness, ran seventh; it was the only time he was unplaced in 51 starts.
Hi-Jinx, a plain mare described as the ugliest horse in the race by one unkind journalist, returned to one of the mildest receptions in Cup history. She had the breeding to win, however, being bred at the famous Trelawney Stud in New Zealand from a Foxbridge mare, Lady’s Bridge. Trelawney Stud had produced three previous Melbourne Cup winners—Hiraji, Foxzami and MacDougal—all from mares by the great sire Foxbridge. Hi-Jinx cost 500 guineas as a yearling, and took out the largest prize ever offered for a race in Australia when she won $40,000 for her Cup victory.
The brave little chestnut mare Light Fingers was spotted as a yearling in New Zealand by Bart Cummings and raced on lease in the white with royal blue spots and cap of Wally Broderick, a Melbourne grain merchant who owned her older full brother, The Dip, also trained by Bart.
The two were well named, being by the French stallion Le Filou, which translates as ‘pickpocket’, out of a New Zealand mare Cuddlesome. In fact, Light Fingers was originally named Close Embrace by her breeders, the
Dawson family, but Broderick wanted a name from the sire’s side to match her full brother, so he changed her name before she raced.
Changing a horse’s registered name is supposed to be unlucky, but Broderick and Bart struck it lucky with Light Fingers. She was an out-and-out champion, considered ‘the best since Wakeful’ by older racing men. She started four times at two for three wins and a second, beaten a head. In her three-year-old season she started twelve times for seven wins, two seconds and two thirds; the wins included the VRC Wakeful, Manifold and Oaks Stakes, the Sandown Guineas, and the AJC Princess Handicap and the Oaks.
Light Fingers suffered a serious virus attack, which delayed her return to racing in the spring of 1965. She also was plagued by back problems and missed the Caulfield Cup after she won but pulled a shoulder muscle in the Craiglee Stakes. She went into the Melbourne Cup on the limited preparation of just five starts.
In one of the greatest Cup finishes of all time the tiny chestnut mare defeated her huge black stablemate, Ziema, by a lip to give Bart his first Cup win and his first Cup quinella.
Her bad back worsened after her four-year-old season, which meant Bart needed all his skill and care to keep her racing. She went into the 1966 Cup carrying a massive weight, on an even lighter preparation than 1965, just four starts; Bart’s better-conditioned champion, Galilee, defeated her by 2 lengths even though she ran a great race, hitting the front halfway down the straight and hanging on for a gallant second to give Bart his second Cup quinella in a row.
The racing public loved the little mare and sent her out at 10 to 9 for her final victory in the Sandown Cup, carrying 9 st (57 kg) on a bog track. Light Fingers’ record overall was 33 starts for fifteen wins, eight seconds and five thirds.
It was to be another 23 years before a female would win another Melbourne Cup, but mares won two out of four Cups between 1988 and 1991—who could forget those two mighty chestnuts, Empire Rose and Let’s Elope?
Although bred on different lines, Empire Rose and Let’s Elope were similar in many ways. Both were bred and owned in New Zealand, both were huge chestnut mares (Empire Rose only just fitted in the barrier stalls and Let’s Elope was not much smaller), and both were mighty tough stayers.
Empire Rose was by the great Sir Tristram out of a Sovereign Edition mare and won good races on both sides of the Tasman, including the New Zealand Cup and Trentham Stakes in New Zealand, and Australia’s Mackinnon Stakes and Melbourne Cup of 1988.
Her record in the Melbourne Cup is getting towards the ‘Shadow King’ level. She started four times in the great race for a fifth in 1986, a second in 1987, a win in 1988, and a final unplaced run as a seven-year-old, behind Tawriffic, in 1989.
Although Empire Rose’s overall record of nine wins and eight placings from 48 starts is not equal to that of some other great staying mares, Laurie Laxon’s efforts to condition the huge mare to win major races and race on well into her seven-year-old season is remarkable. He was helped in his training by wife Sheila, who rode Empire Rose in her trackwork and would later become the first female trainer to win a Melbourne Cup, appropriately with a mare.
Having watched the huge chestnut mare go around in four Melbourne Cups, the racing public could have been forgiven for thinking she had returned, in different racing colours, two years after her final run in 1989, when Let’s Elope took out the Cup.
Let’s Elope was by the American stallion Nassipour out of a New Zealand-bred mare by the good English sire Battle-Waggon. In spite of the multinational nature of her pedigree, a look at her breeding confirms that she had three crosses to Nearco, two via Nasrullah and one via Dante, and also had Bois Roussel on her sire side, which means she had an abundance of Carbine blood.
Let’s Elope did not start at two, but showed some promise at three while racing in New Zealand. She won her first start and then struggled to win again until taking out a Group 3 event and being sold. Her new owners transferred her to Bart Cummings in Australia, and the ‘Cups King’ conditioned her for a spring campaign in Melbourne, in 1991, as a four-year-old.
Although she was a duffer in the wet, she showed good staying ability in her first three starts for Bart. Then the weather cleared and the mighty mare went on a winning rampage.
Let’s Elope won four races in a row in the spring: the Turnbull Stakes, the Mackinnon and the Melbourne–Caulfield Cups double—the first mare since Rivette to do so.
She then returned in the autumn to win three in a row: the C.F. Orr Stakes, St George Stakes and Australian Cup.
Injury and controversy plagued Let’s Elope for the rest of her career. A damaged fetlock kept her out of racing until she returned to defeat the champion Better Loosen Up in a match race at five. She was then relegated from close second to fifth for causing interference to that same horse in the 1992 W.S. Cox Plate, won by Super Impose.
She bled in the Japan Cup and again while racing in the USA, where on two occasions she was first past the post but was again relegated for interference, including from first to third in a Group 1 race.
The second bleeding attack and a fractured cannon bone forced her into retirement in 1993. She produced the good stayer Ustinov from a mating to Seeking The Gold but, despite her matings with the best US sires, her other progeny did not do well on the track.
In 1998 another two great New Zealand mares fought out a memorable Melbourne Cup finish when Jezabeel, winner of the Auckland Cup and a daughter of that great producer of stayers, Sir Tristram’s son Zabeel, defeated another daughter of Zabeel, Champagne, in an unforgettable finish.
Jezabeel was typical of the dour Zabeel offspring who took time to mature and race into condition; she won seven of her 26 starts and was placed another five times. Jezabeel had Northern Dancer blood via her sire’s dam, Lady Giselle, and Nasrullah on her dam side, so she fits the ‘Cup-winning’ pattern of Carbine blood on both sides.
Having helped husband Laurie to win the Cup with Empire Rose in 1988, Sheila Laxon returned in triumph as a trainer in her own right to take the Cups double with Ethereal in 2001.
Owned and bred by the Vela brothers at Pencarrow Stud, Ethereal was sired by US Breeders’ Cup winner, Rhythm, the champion US two-year-old of 1989 and a son of the hugely influential sire Mr Prospector. Completing Ethereal’s multinational pedigree was her dam, Romanee Conti, a Hong Kong Cup winner and daughter of Sir Tristram, who carried both Wilkes and Le Filou blood on her dam side.
With a pedigree made to order for a stayer with a turn of foot, Ethereal proved to be just that. She took out four classic races at Group 1 level in winning the Caulfield–Melbourne Cups double, the Queensland Oaks and the Tancred Stakes (now the BMW).
At stud Ethereal produced the handy filly Uberalles, from a mating to Giant’s Causeway. Uberalles won at Group 2 level and was third in the New Zealand Derby. Ethereal’s other progeny have sold for huge prices, with a colt by Stravinsky fetching $1.3 million at the Karaka sales, but have not excelled as yet on the track.
Two years after Ethereal’s Cups double, the history of ‘mares and the Melbourne Cup’ was to be changed forever when Makybe Diva won the first of her three.
But what of mares who never won the Melbourne Cup? How do Wakeful, Carlita, Desert Gold, Tranquil Star, Flight, Chiquita, Leilani, Surround, Emancipation and Sunline compare to those who did?
Surround, Emancipation and Sunline were great champions, but they were not true stayers, although Surround looked like having the potential to be a great stayer at three. She won the VRC Oaks and Queensland Oaks, but failed in the Brisbane Cup at 3200 metres. After an amazing three-year-old season, in which she started sixteen times for twelve wins, she was retired at four, the age at which Makybe Diva won her first race.
Emancipation, for all her brilliance and toughness up to a mile, failed to run beyond 2000 metres. Her tally of Group 1 wins—seven—equals The Diva’s, but she was certainly no stayer.
Sunline won almost twice as many times as The Diva at Group 1 level, but she was powerful
only over the shorter distances—the longest distance at which she ever competed was 2040 metres—and she was never a candidate for a 2-mile Cup.
Carlita won the VRC Derby and Oaks as well as the Rosehill Guineas and the Craven Plate, and the Kings Plate at weight-for-age by a massive 25 lengths. She ran third in the Cup of 1915 carrying 8 st 5 lb (53 kg), and sixth in 1916, with 9 st 5 lb (59.5 kg), behind Sasanof who was carrying only 6 st 12 lb (43.5 kg).
Desert Gold also raced in World War I and won nineteen races in a row. She won 36 times from 59 starts and carried top-weight of 9 st 6 lb (60 kg) to finish eighth in the Cup of 1918. It was one of only six unplaced runs in her 59-start career.
Tranquil Star was tough as old boots, starting 111 times and winning two Cox Plates, three Mackinnons, and the St George Stakes, Caulfield Stakes, Lloyd Stakes and so on. She carried a record-winning weight for a mare to take out the Caulfield Cup with 8 st 12 lb (56 kg) in 1942, and then carried a whopping 9 st 3 lb (58.5 kg) to run twelfth on a bog track behind Colonus, carrying 7 st 2 lb (45 kg), in the Melbourne Cup that year. She even raced on successfully after recovering from breaking her jaw, winning a Memsie Stakes, a William Reid Stakes and her third Mackinnon!
Flight never started in a Melbourne Cup, but could stay. She won the Cox Plate, Mackinnon Stakes, AJC Oaks, Colin Stephen Stakes and Champagne Stakes, and ran third in a Sydney Cup. At middle distance she was often up against Bernborough, but still ended her career with a respectable record of 24 wins and 28 other placings from 65 starts. Although she was a granddaughter of Heroic, she was famously bought for just 60 guineas and won more than a thousand times her purchase price in wartime when prizemoney was very low. Her daughter, appropriately named Flight’s Daughter, produced Derby winners Skyline and Sky High, who established a bloodline of world significance when standing at stud in the USA.
The bonny black mare Chiquita won eleven times at three, including the Manifold Stakes, Thousand Guineas, Wakeful Stakes and the VRC Oaks. She found one better in the Jim Cummings-trained Comic Court, however, who defeated her often, including in the Mackinnon Stakes and Melbourne Cup of 1950, where she ran second both times; she also ran second in the Caulfield Cup behind Grey Boots. She had the satisfaction of one win over Comic Court in the Craiglee Stakes over a mile, and their daughter, Comicquita, ran second to Even Stevens in the 1962 Melbourne Cup.