Only a select number of horses have won Group 1 races in five consecutive Australian racing seasons. Mr Brightside became the fourth in the past 35 years with his victory at Flemington on Saturday.
Among the greats of Australian turf are a collection of horses that are as renowned for their toughness and longevity as they are for their brilliance. Names like Rough Habit and Tie The Knot are spoken about in such glowing terms because they were able to produce their best year after year.
Before last weekend, only three horses in Australia since 1990 have won a Group 1 races in five separate racing seasons. The duo above is joined by Winx in a truly elite band of stars. They now have another member of that club - Mr Brightside.
Rough Habit is unique among that quintet as he did it over six seasons, winning Group 1s at ages three, four, five, six and eight. There were 1528 days between his first Group 1 win in the 1990 Queensland Derby and his 11th and last in the 1994 Caulfield Stakes.
Tie The Knot was a Group 1 winner at three and added wins at four, five, six and seven, with his final elite victory coming in the 2002 Chipping Norton Stakes, his fourth success in that same race. There were 1604 days between his first and final Group 1 victory.
In comparison Winx racked up her 25 Group 1s in rapid succession, with 1414 days between her victory in the 2015 Queensland Oaks as a late three-year-old and her famous farewell in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick in April 2019. Like Tie The Knot, her five consecutive seasons of Group 1 wins came at age three, four, five, six, and seven.
Mr Brightside broke through for his first Group 1 as a late four-year-old in the 2022 Doncaster Handicap. His second didn’t come until 12 months later in the same race in his five-year-old campaign.
His six-year-old season saw him win four Group 1 races, including his first win in the Makybe Diva Stakes while as a seven-year-old he added another three. Saturday’s Makybe Diva Stakes was his 10th Group 1 in total and came 1261 days after his first.
The Lindsay Park superstar is the only one of the above to have achieved it from four through to eight years of age. While it is early in the current racing season, you wouldn’t rule him out of returning next season and doing it all again, in what would be a unique achievement.
There is another horse that is technically not part of this club, but deserved a mention. Takeover Target didn’t win his first Group 1 until he was five, claiming the Salinger Stakes at Flemington on Derby Day 2004.
Over the next five years, he would travel the world, winning elite races in Australia, Japan, Great Britain and Singapore. The final of his eight Group 1 wins came in the 2009 Goodwood Handicap four years, six months and two days (1645 days) after his first Group 1 win at Flemington. It remains the longest gap of any horse this century between their first and last Group 1 wins.
However, his Group 1 win in his eight-year-old season came overseas, the Krisflyer Sprint, which is a disqualifier in an Australian-only race context.
Horses to have won Australian Group 1 races in five consecutive seasons since 1990
In winning the Makybe Diva for a third time, he joins the triple Melbourne Cup-winning mare that the race is named after, and five others this century to have won the same Group 1 race on three or more occasions.
Winx did it in five different races, the Cox Plate, the Chipping Norton and the George Ryder, which she won four times each, and the Queen Elizabeth and the George Main Stakes on three occasions.
Black Caviar won three editions of the Lightning Stakes, while Nature Strip and Chautauqua won three consecutive TJ Smiths. Tie The Knot, as mentioned, won four Chipping Nortons, although only three this century.
It is seriously elite company to sit in, Winx, Black Caviar, Nature Strip, Tie The Knot and Chautauqua.
In terms of those to have achieved the hat-track at Flemington, Mr Brightside joins Black Caviar and Makybe Diva, while further back the only other two to have done it at Flemington in races now classified as Group 1s are Tranquil Star and Wakeful.
Having now reached double figures in terms of this total, he now suits equal seventh all time on the list of most Australian Group 1 victories behind Winx (25), Black Caviar (14), Kingston Town (14), Tie The Knot (13), Manikato (11) and Verry Elleegant (11). He is equal with fellow Kiwi-breds Sunline (10 in Australia, although 13 overall), Rough Habit (10 in Aus plus one in NZ) and Octagonal.
Significantly, Mr Brightside is now just one adrift of Verry Elleegant’s record haul of 11 Australian Group 1s by a Kiwi-bred horse.
He is also the fourth highest-earning horse in Australian racing history with just under $18 million in prize money, behind only Winx, Bella Nipotina and Nature Strip. Not bad for a one-time $22,000 yearling passed in as a two-year-old and then bought back for $7750.
But while his pedigree doesn’t look much on first glance, there are flecks of gold along the way. Bullbars, his sire, is a Group 1-placed half-brother to two Group 1 winners, by a globally impactful sire, while Mr Brightside’s dam’s family contains eight Group 1 winners descended for his fourth maternal dam, Taiona, among them Hong Kong champ Ka Ying Rising.
