Tarzino Trophy Countdown: Number 3 - Sunline 2002
The first Group 1 of the New Zealand racing season always brings a great deal of excitement. As we get closer to the running of the 2020 Tarzino Trophy, we are taking a look at the top 10 performances in the race since the turn of the century.
First run in 1985 when named the Challenge Stakes, all through the years this race has attracted an extremely strong field. Given it is early in the season at Weight-For-Age conditions over 1400m, horses of the highest echelon use this race as a springboard to campaigns both in New Zealand and Internationally.
Previously named the Mudgway Stakes, the Mudgway Challenge Stakes and the Makfi Challenge Stakes, the race was renamed the Tarzino Trophy in 2017. Tarzino - a former Victoria Derby and Rosehill Guineas winner - now stands at Westbury Stud.
Sometimes it’s about more than the performance in the race, sometimes it’s about the horse as a whole. A horse that was one of, if not the, best that New Zealand has ever produced. A horse that is right up there with the best to be seen in Australasia and one of the greatest race mares on the world stage.
It is for the above reasons that the great Sunline deserves every inch of her third placing in our Top 10 Tarzino Trophy countdown, courtesy of her victory in 2002.
The story for this great mare began on September 29 1995 at Pleasanton Stud in the Waikato when Songline gave birth to a foal by Desert Sun. The sire, a British Group 2 winner and the subsequent grandfather of Black Caviar, had before that tasted only relatively modest success with his progeny but was the grandson of one of the best in Danzig. The dam, a Western Symphony mare with who had recorded five victories in the South Island, belonged to Susan Archer and Michael Martin who would be responsible for breeding this piece of equine brilliance.
The decision was made by Archer and Martin to lease the filly, who’s bloodlines trace all the way back to Phar Lap, to the late trainer Trevor McKee, along with Thayne Green and Helen Lusty. McKee would train at his Takanini base in partnership with his son Stephen.
When after four trials she was guided home to victory by Peter Johnson as a 2yo on debut at Paeroa, connections would’ve been entitled to think they had an OK racehorse on their hands.
Then when she was successful in her next two outings as a juvenile, including the Listed Northland Breeders Stakes at 1200m, the evaluations would’ve risen from “OK” to “pretty good”!
It was when she returned as a 3yo at Hastings and was first past the post for a fourth time on the spin, the team deemed it necessary to see how good she really was by tripping across the ditch.
In what was the start of a phenomenal record in Australia, she kicked off her campaign by winning the Furious Stakes (Group 3, 1400m). The came the Tea Rose Stakes (Group 2, 1500m), before her first Group 1 prize in the Flight Stakes (Group 1, 1600m) of 1998. She was now seven from seven and a burgeoning into a true star already.
Returning in February of the following year, proving she was far too good for New Zealand competition by romping home at Ellerslie, she would set off across to Aussie once more. In a five start campaign, she was successful three times, culminating in comfortably her best victory to date against the best milers the Aussies could muster in the prestigious Doncaster Handicap (Group 1, 1600m). A remarkable feat as a New Zealand 3yo when you look back on it.
Her record at the end of her 3yo season stood at 13 starts, 11 wins and over $2.5million in earnings. Connections, and the New Zealand racing fraternity, could hardly believe their eyes!
It was straight back to Sydney for her return as a 4yo, and normal system was resumed as she took out the Warwick Stakes (Group 2, 1400m) first up, beating Tie The Knot in the process.
The big prize was the worlds leading Weight-For-Age contest at Moonee Valley in October, the Cox Plate. She would race in Sydney as a lead into that with two second placings and a fourth placing the race before in the Epsom Handicap (Group 1, 1600m).
Some were questioning if she had slightly gone off the boil, placings at the highest level were considered not good enough such was her remarkable consistency.
In a performance that was the hallmark of her whole career, she put those doubters to bed by leading all the way to claim the Cox Plate of 1999. She would join the likes of Bonecrusher, Surfers Paradise and Our Maizcay as Kiwi-trained gallopers who have etched their name on the trophy of this famous race.
She would win another four times in her 4yo season, including two at Group 1 level in Australia.
A bid for successive Cox Plate’s was on the menu as she returned as a 5yo to Melbourne, and in a familiar story she took out the Group 1 Manikato (1200m), before two Group 2 victories and a close up second in the Turnbull (Group 2, 2000m) as her lead in to her main target.
Her run in the 2000 Cox Plate can be regarded as one of her greatest. On the last Saturday of October, Sunline took devastating control in the rain-affected going to win by seven lengths from Caulfield Cup winner Diatribe, with Fancied runners Tie the Knot (2nd in 1999), Sky Heights (3rd in 1999), and Shogun Lodge (conqueror of her in the George Main Stakes) were beaten a combined margin of more than 100 lengths. In winning, she became the first Australasian horse to pass $6 million in career earnings.
It was time to go to Hong Kong for a second tilt at the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile and she used the Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes (Group 2, 1400m) as preparation for it, proving her ridiculous dominance on New Zealand shores by winning under a hold by 3 1/2 lengths!
Now the highest rated turf mare in the world, this performance was the very definition of her as a race horse. Under extreme late pressure from the Hong Kong champion Fairy King Prawn, she prevailed in a tooth-and-nail struggle, kicking again at the line to get up for an outstanding win.
After a 4 1/2 training gallop win in the Waikato Draught Sprint (Group 1, 1400m), the mare headed back to Sydney for another Australian Group level victory in the Apollo Srakes (Group 2, 1400m) at Warwick Farm.
She was invited to compete in the Dubai Duty Free (Group 2, 1777m), where she was an admirable third behind the outstanding Jim And Tonic and newfound rival Fairy King Prawn. Such was the level of prize money, this performance added $500,000 to her bulging earnings list.
An historic bid for a hat-trick of Cox Plate victories was in the eyes of connections when she returned to the racetrack in Melbourne as a 6yo. Starting with a second in the Manikato (Group 1, 1400m), following on with two placings and then a victory in the Turnbull Stakes (Group 2, 2000m), she would line up again for a third straight time.
It wasn’t to be, as she was just edged out by the newcomer Northerley from Western Australia, but losing no admirers in the process.
After a well deserved break in the paddock, she would return at Te Rapa and put in one of those ‘stroll in the park’ performances in the 2002 Waikato Draught Sprint (Group 1, 1400m) before being aimed up again in Sydney.
In a scarcely believable show of consistency and durability, she would string together three Group 1 victories on the bounce, the second of those being another win in the Doncaster Handicap (1600m) almost three years to the day since her win in the 1999 edition.
How about that to a lead up to the Mudgway Partsworld Stakes of 2002!
With only rare glimpses of the great mare on a racetrack in her home country, every time she took her place on home soil it was a special occasion. The crowds flocked to the course and on the 16th of September 2002 at Hastings it was no different.
Meaning no disrespect to the quality opposition she faced, the race was almost a secondary consideration behind seeing Sunline in the flesh!
The rivals included Cent Home, a dual Group 1 winner who had won a Group 2 in Sydney and had won the Mudgway two years prior. Kaapeon was there, a horse who had very good black type form behind him.
When the gates flew open, the champion mare was a $1.35 favourite and was settled into 4th in the running by regular jockey and Kiwi ex-pat Greg Childs, who’d made the trip over to ride his treasured horse.
When they rounded the corner, she still had some work to do. It was Tit For Taat, one of those perennially underrated horses, who was free in the lead. He was a 2000 Guineas and Bayer Classic winner and would take some pegging back.
First up on a rain affected track, it took the McKee trained glamour mare a bit to wind up, but when she did she passed by for the most expected of all victories in the race.
Stephen McKee reflects on the significance of the horse and the race:
“She was a bit wintry in the coat and as a 7yo mare we knew she was taking more and more time to come up. It was obviously significant and special as it was her last run in New Zealand. She probably wasn’t as dominant as she had been in the past but fresh up with no trial and to beat that field was still a great effort. It set her up and while she didn’t win again in Australia she raced incredibly well in what was always her final campaign”
“It’s a good horses race, there has been some outstanding winners over the years, the days of Seachange/Darci Brahma doing battle were fantastic and it is nice to part of the races history, Sunline was a phenomenal horse and was life changing for a lot of people”
In what was to be the last time she would be seen on a New Zealand racetrack it was a fitting end to a wonderful four-and-a-half years since she was seen on debut at Paeroa.
She headed to Australia for her final campaign, starting with a third in the George Main Stakes (Group 1, 1600m). She and the brilliant Lonhro ran each other into the ground when she was second to him in the Yalumba Stakes at Caulfield (Group 1, 2000m), running a record time in the race.
Her swansong was an historic fourth tilt at a Cox Plate. She was fourth, again Northerly was the winner, but bowed out an absolute champion.
As we like to do, here is the remarkable list of her Group 1 victories:
Flight Stakes (1600m) - 1998
W.S Cox Plate (2040m) - 1999 & 2000
Doncaster Handicap (1600m) - 1999 & 2002
All-Aged Stakes (1400m) - 2000 & 2002
Coolmore Classic (1500m) - 2000 & 2002
Waikato Sprint (1400m) - 2001 & 2002
Hong Kong Mile (1600m) - 2000
Manikato Stakes (1200m) - 2000
When the curtain came down on her sensational career, the record stood at 48 starts, for 32 wins, 9 seconds and 3 thirds. She earned $11, 351, 607 in prize money.
She was at the time the highest earning race mare of all time.
Her 13 Group 1 victories took her within one of the great Kingston Town.
She was a four-time New Zealand Horse of the Year from 1999 - 2002 and a three-time Australian Horse of the Year from 2000 - 2002.
Aside from all of the above, her career was simply freakish. She could win Group 1 races against the highest calibre of horses from 1200m to 2040m. She could win at the highest level fresh-up or at the end of an arduous campaign. She could travel extensively, never seeming to affect her ability to race. At her peak, you could place her just about anywhere against anyone and she’d be almost guaranteed to win.
Her best attribute was the ability to front run and then with an unparralled will to win fight off champion horses in the closing stages.
Retirement was conducted at the Mckee’s property in Takanini, where she produced four foals - two by Rock Of Gibraltar, one each by Zabeel and Hussonet.
In a tragic turn of events, the great race mare lost her nine-month battle with Laminitis on the 1st of May 2009, a little over 13 years and 8 months since her birth in the Waikato, and people from right across New Zealand came to pay their respects to the champion.
A memorial to the inaugural inductee to the New Zealand Racing Hall Of Fame was unveiled at Ellerslie racecourse in 2012 where she had been buried three years earlier.
One of the very best parts of the sport of horse racing is the ability of an animal to capture the imagination of so many people when they are racing, and the ability to look back on so many great memories when they race no more. Sunline captured the hearts of racing fans and the wider public not only in New Zealand, but in Australia as well. She was as much admired there as she was in her native country.
In doing these articles on great winners of this race, it has made us reflect on the fact that sometimes we can enjoy a horse at the time, but move onto the next one when they are gone. When it comes to Sunline, you’d go a very long way to find someone that will ever forget her.
In the words of the great race-caller John Tapp: “Sunline. The champion. The Kiwi mare. Sunline.”
Our Number 3 since the turn of the millennium is Sunline!