was bought by Cummings in 1972 at the Adelaide Yearling Sales for$18,000 (top price) and then sold to prominent owner Victor Peters, neither could envisage the heights to which Taj Rossi would rise in his short but spectacular career. Beginning his racing as a two-year-old in Adelaide, his first two wins came in moderate company in the winter of 1973 at Flemington. In the spring he ran second at Moonee Valley. Then followed a dazzling sequence in which he won six of his next seven starts including the Ascot Vale Stakes, Moonee Valley Stakes, W.S. Cox Plate, Victoria Derby, George Adams Hcp and Sandown Guineas. Said Bart Cummings: “All along I have said that he is one of the best, if not the best, three-year-old that Australia has known in the last 50 years”. This magnificent group of victories secured for Taj Rossi the award of Racehorse of the Year for the 1973-74 season. Cummings had great respect for Taj Rossi, who was retired to stud as a four-year-old, siring among others, Taj Eclipse, the winner of the 1983 VRC Oaks and yes, owned by Mr and Mrs Victor Peters. BANJO PATERSON SERIES This series is for open stayers and is named in honour of revered author and poet Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson, who had a lifelong love affair with horses. Polo matches, picnic races and riding his own pony were all part of his early life in country NSW. After moving to Sydney and qualifying as a solicitor, he began submitting poetry to The Bulletin under the pseudonym “The Banjo”, the name of a racehorse his father had owned. His various careers included jockey, horse trainer in the Middle East during WWI and racing journal editor, but it’s his wonderful bush ballads and poems – such as The Man From Snowy River – that truly reflect his equine passion. In 1886 he published A Dream of the Melbourne Cup; the first of many racing ballads, including Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve, The Open Steeplechase, Rio Grande’s Last Race and The Wargilah Handicap.
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