Sunline (NZ)

World champion mare
11:44 PM Friday Oct 24, 2008

Forty-eight starts on thirteen tracks in four countries across five seasons. Thirty-two wins, 13 of them at Group One level, and almost $14 million in prizemoney. Two Cox Plates, the Hong Kong Mile, two Doncasters, two All Aged Stakes, two Coolmore Classics, two Waikato Sprints – and seven Horse of the Year titles.

From her first start at Paeroa in May 1998 to her final racetrack appearance in the 2002 Cox Plate at Moonee Valley, Sunline was driven by  a wondrous physique and a ferocious competitive spirit that made her a superstar of global racing.

the sexy, stunning, sublime, sensational mare

By Ra Ora Stud import Desert Sun from the family of the great Phar Lap, she was reared and educated in the Waikato before joining the stable of canny trainers Trevor & Stephen McKee.

They soon knew they had something exceptional on their hands and after she won black type as a late two-year-old, they set their sights on Sydney’s Princess Series for three-year-old fillies. An unbeaten spring campaign ended with her first Group One victory, the Flight Stakes.

She returned in the autumn to run away from ten other Group One winners in the Doncaster Handicap G1, and in the spring of 1999 headed to Melbourne where she won the Cox Plate, defeating Tie The Knot and Sky Heights. It was her second Cox Plate win a year later, in her finest season, that sealed her fame. Sunline romped home from a field that included Redoute’s Choice and Testa Rossa, to win by a record-equalling seven lengths.

Less than two months later came the unforgettable Hong Kong Mile at Sha Tin, where she held off champion Fairy King Prawn on sheer class and indomitable courage.

It was fitting that Sunline returned to Sydney for the last great phase of her career, as an autumn six-year-old, to reel off three stunning wins in the Coolmore Classic, All Aged Stakes and her second Doncaster Handicap, defying 58 kg and Shogun Lodge’s desperate charge. It was enough to earn her a third Australian Horse of the Year title, and induction to Australia’s Racing Hall of Fame – the only horse to receive that honour while still racing.

SUNLINE (NZ) 1995 bay mare
BREEDING	Desert Sun (GB)-Songline (NZ) by Western Symphony (USA)
RECORD	48 starts from 2 to 7: 32 wins from 1100m-2040m, 12 placings, $A11,351,607
BREEDERS	Susan Archer & Michael Martin, Auckland
OWNERS	Thayne Green, Helen Lusty & Trevor McKee, Auckland
TRAINERS	Stephen & Trevor McKee, Takanini
JOCKEY	Greg Childs
GROUP ONE WINS	MVRC W.S. Cox Plate – twice, AJC Doncaster H. – twice, HKJC Hong Kong Mile, AJC All Aged S. – twice, STC Coolmore Classic – twice, MVRC Manikato S., AJC Flight S., Waikato RC Waikato Sprint – twice
AWARDS	Champion Australian Racehorse, 2000, 2001, 2002 New Zealand Horse of the Year, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Timeform's World Champion Turf Mare, 2000 (ATR: 129) Australian Racing Hall of Fame, 2002 New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame, 2006