Home-grown Steeds Sweep Melbourne

NZ-bred horses made an extraordinary clean sweep of this year’s Spring Racing Carnival in Melbourne. Last year’s Victoria Derby champion, Efficient, was the surprise winner of the Melbourne Cup, streaking past European entries Purple Moon and Mahler in the final seconds of the race. Efficient’s win was the third Melbourne Cup victory for his sire, Zabeel, following Might And Power in 1997 and Jezabeel in 1998. Zabeel has now equalled his own sire Sir Tristram’s record of producing three Melbourne Cup winners. NZ racehorses also won the Caulfield Cup with Master O’Reilly, Cox Plate with El Segundo and Victoria Derby with Kibbutz. “We’ve had an enormous profile this spring and another Melbourne Cup just tops it off,” said Zabeel owner, Sir Patrick Hogan. “What the New Zealand-breds have achieved hammers it home that we’ve got the stallions, we’ve got the mares and we can foot it with the best.”