FEATURE STORY
A 21ST TO REMEMBER TREVOR MARSHALLSEA
She is the mare written into the history books and a national sporting idol. This year marks five years since Winx won her first of two Turnbull Stakes at Flemington. We remember that day. It wasn’t the best field she defeated, and certainly not the biggest. It was not her largest purse won, nor her greatest margin. But as 21st celebrations go, this would be remembered by all who bore witness to the occasion, and roared on its beloved star. On October 7, 2017, a large and buzzing crowd thronged to Flemington, mostly to see one horse only: Winx, the wonder mare. She’d won 20 races straight, and was by now laying waste routinely to records and rivals, high-quality thoroughbreds unluckily born in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yet in all her 30 starts, Chris Waller’s champion – nothing much to look at, but by most reckonings the greatest racehorse in the world – hadn’t graced Australian racing’s grandest stage, this country’s oldest sporting venue. Through 177 years since 1840, the mightiest of thoroughbreds had been hailed at the course by the old Salt Water River. Carbine, Phar Lap, Rising Fast, Tulloch, Makybe Diva and Black Caviar. Kingston Town had been there, but was four times vanquished. Now Winx would take her bow. If she could win the Turnbull Stakes, she’d take another step toward eclipsing The King a second way, equalling his 14 Group 1 triumphs. After this would come the unthinkable – matching his three Cox Plates. Her jockey Hugh Bowman would typically preview his other half’s keenly awaited appearances by cautioning that they were, after all, still horse races, so nothing could be taken for granted. But on this fine spring day she looked a certainty more than she had in any previous event.
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