FEATURE
TAJ ROSSI: THE BEST 3YO FOR BART AND ROY
Lunar Flare’s recent run away victory on the Andrew Ramsden Stakes brought fond memories of one of the great horses of the modern era, Taj Rossi. Here’s a closer look as to ‘why’.
BY JOE MCGRATH
W hen reflecting on his stellar career, former champion jockey Roy Higgins would always talk of Light Fingers and Red Handed. His two Melbourne Cup winners from 1965 and 1967 respectively. When talking about other very good horses he rode – and there were many – he always paused before talking about Taj Rossi. For some reason there was a deep appreciation of a horse with a constitution unseen in most thoroughbreds. As cited in a biography written by Patrick Bartley called Roy Higgins – Australia’s Favourite Jockey a chapter was dedicated to Taj Rossi, Tontonan and Leilani. On Taj Rossi he rated him as the best 3YO he ever rode: “His spring was incredible,” Higgins reflected in 2009 after another Cummings-trained star, So You Think, won the Cox Plate. “His only real failure, if you could call it that, was a fourth in the Caulfield Guineas. I settled third on the fence and that’s where he finished, under a stranglehold. “I was waiting for something to move but nothing did. I was climbing over their backs. I said to Bart (that) he could have won by two lengths.” Next start Taj Rossi took on the older horses at Moonee Valley in the W.S. Cox Plate (2000m) then reverted back to his own age group in the Victoria Derby (2500m) a week later. He would then drop back to a mile one week after that to run in the George Adams Hcp (1600m) and then go on and
Bart Cummings described Taj Rossi as incredibly tough, and the best 3YO he raced. (Michael Jeffery/VRC Collection)
is one of the best, if not the best three-year- old Australia has known in the last fifty years.’” Cummings would also say in his autobiography titled Bart - My Life : “There was nothing Taj Rossi couldn’t do that spring (1973). I thought Taj Rossi was the best three-year-old ever to have raced, certainly the best I’d trained, and believed that the sky was the limit for him. But he caught a stomach virus the next autumn and just wasn’t the same.” Taj Rossi was raced by Melbourne businessman Victor Peters who, along with his wife Lila, also raced the very good Fulmen in the late 1960s. Their colours of white with
return to his own age group in the Sandown Guineas (1600m) the following week. He won them all! In a spring that was extraordinary, Taj Rossi went on to be judged Australian Champion Racehorse for the 1973–74 season. 2023 marks the 50-year anniversary since the son of Matrice dominated the Melbourne racetracks. Arguably, we are yet to see his like again. Bartley’s recount of Taj Rossi goes on to document: “Taj Rossi won nine races from 21 starts with most of them coming from his three-year-old season and earned this plaudit from his trainer: ‘All along I have said that he
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INSIDE HEADQUARTERS ISSUE 2 2023
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