Death of a champion – Melbourne Cup heroine Makybe Diva gone at 27

Melbourne Cup heroine Makybe Diva, the winner of Australia’s best-known race for three straight years, has died.

Owner Tony Santic’s Makybe Racing announced the Desert King mare had succumbed to a sudden bout of colic. She was 27.

Makybe Diva was Australia’s dominant middle distance and staying mare in the early to mid-2000s, winning the 2003, 2004 and 2005 Melbourne Cup, the first for trainer David Hall and the last two for Lee Freedman.

“For 27 years she was loved by owner Tony Santic and adored by a nation. More than a racehorse, she was heart, history and pride in motion,” Santic’s Makybe social media account posted.

When Hall earned a contract to train in Hong Kong, having also won the 2004 Sydney Cup with the mare, Santic transferred her to Freedman’s private stable Markdel near Mornington.

After jockey Glen Boss guided Makybe Diva to her third Melbourne Cup, Freedman remarked: “Go and find the youngest child here, as that child might be the only person who lives long enough to see something like that again.”

As well as three Melbourne Cups and a Sydney Cup, Makybe Diva also won the 2005 Cox Plate having also won the Australian Cup earlier that year.

Foaled in the northern hemisphere, the Desert King mare was selected by agent John Foote, with a patient Hall mindful of her age differential, having been born in March 1999, starting her career in a Benalla maiden when fourth.

She then progressed in late winter and spring of 2002 to win six straight races, going from a Wangaratta maiden to the Group 2 Queen Elizabeth at Flemington.

Makybe Diva, who had 10 foals, was pensioned by Santic in 2020 and has been living out her days in Victoria since then.

When she was retired to stud, her first mating was to Coolmore’s shuttler Galileo, with the resulting colt selling for $1.5 million at the 2009 Inglis Easter Yearling Sale.

Her best was the stakes-placed mare Divanation, who is by All Too Hard, the half-brother to another champion mare in Black Caviar.

Santic’s Makybe Racing and Breeding retains the mare’s daughters Terrifictonka, her last foal by More Than Ready, and Sublime Diva, a mare by Brazen Beau.