Champion mare Winx was tonight crowned the Australian Racehorse of the Year at a function in Sydney.
The award is the highest national honour for a racehorse and capped an unbeaten campaign for the daughter of Street Cry for the 2015-16 racing season.
A $230,000 purchase for Magic Bloodstock from the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale in 2013, Winx has developed into not only one of Australia’s best horses, but indeed one of the highest ranked in the world.
During the season Winx raced on seven occasions for seven wins including five at Group One level – including a Cox Plate and Doncaster.
Winx is now into another racing season and she is currently unbeaten this preparation again and now heads to Melbourne with the Caulfield Stakes and Cox Plate on her agenda.
With 15 wins and three runner-up placings from 21 starts, Winx has already won her three owners a staggering $7,135,425.
Part owner Debbie Kepitis summed up what the award meant to her and her fellow connections including trainer Chris Waller and jockey Hugh Bowman.
“She’s an amazing horse,” Kepitis beamed. “We are on the ride of a lifetime – we are at the peak of a wave.”
“We want this wave to travel forever and on this wave we have the whole of the Australian public with us.”
“She has done it. There’s a lot of people to thank but ultimately without Winx we wouldn’t be here,” Kepitis added.
It is the second straight Champion Racehorse of the Year award for a Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase following Dissident’s crowning a year earlier. Another recent winner is Perth Yearling Sale purchase Scenic Blast.
The Racehorse of the Year award capped a big night for connections who also swept away with the Champion Middle Distance Performer award.
Winx wasn’t the only Magic Millions graduate to be crowned tonight – Capitalist and Tarzino were amongst the big winners.
Capitalist, a winner of the Jeep Magic Millions 2YO Classic and Golden Slipper Stakes, was a deserved Champion Two-Year-Old.
The $165,000 Gold Coast Yearling Sale purchase from Daandine Stud for James Harron Bloodstock, is trained by Peter and Paul Snowden.
Capitalist, a son of another Magic Millions graduate from Daandine Stud in Written Tycoon, is set to run in Saturday’s Roman Consul Stakes.
Tarzino capped a big night when he was crowned the Champion Three Old Colt of Gelding after sweeping the Victoria Derby and Rosehill Guineas.
A $60,000 National Yearling purchase for trainer Mick Price from the draft of Yarraman Park Stud, Tarzino now wears the colours of Rosemont Stud, the far he will ultimately retire to stud. Tarzino is running in another Group One race on Sunday at Flemington.
Meanwhile, at another racing celebration, this time up north, it was quality Queensland mare Tinto and star juvenile Capitalist who swept the major awards.
A National Yearling Sale graduate for Eureka Stud, Tinto was a Queensland Oaks winner at three and a multiple winner of the Magic Millions Trophy prior to her recent retirement to stud. She was crowned the Gold Coast Horse of the Year for local performers.
And the other major award of the night, the Gold Coast Turf Club Horse of the Year, for horses from all states, Capitalist was the winner.
Capitalist won the $2.5 million Jeep Magic Millions 2YO Classic in January before heading to Sydney to win the world’s richest juvenile race, the Golden Slipper Stakes at Rosehill.
