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| Staff Writer |
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Australian Racing Hall of Famer Let’s Elope, who completed the Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double in 1991, has earned induction to the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame.
Let’s Elope will take her place alongside fellow Melbourne Cup-winning New Zealand-bred greats of the turf including Carbine (1890), Phar Lap (1930), Rising Fast (1954), Might And Power (1997), and Ethereal (2001), at the Hall of Fame.
In an unbeaten seven-race streak, she won the Turnbull Stakes, Caulfield Cup, LKS Mackinnon Stakes, and Melbourne Cup, followed in late summer-autumn by further success in the CF Orr Stakes and St George Stakes, before capping those performances in the Australian Cup.
The early 1990s was to prove a landmark period for Highview Stud. As well as Let’s Elope and Grooming, another subsequent Australian star in Grosvenor filly Richfield Lady was bred at the west Waikato nursery, having been sold to Bill Borrie and winning four of her five starts at two for Canterbury trainers Peter and Dawn Williams. In the autumn of 1991, then New Zealand-based horseman Anton Koolman was commissioned to find some likely breeding investments for Australian interests, and Let’s Elope and Richfield Lady came onto his radar.
The second half of Let’s Elope’s four-year-old season revealed further dimensions to her talent as she continued on her winning way over much shorter distances than her optimum and then at weight-for-age in the Australian Cup. She completely dominated that race, coming from a clear last to beat Shiva’s Revenge by four lengths in track record time of exactly two minutes for the 2000m. She was an easy choice for 1991-92 Australian Horse of the Year honours.
Let’s Elope returned at five to win a match race over 2000m at Caulfield against eight-time Group One winner Better Loosen Up, then after finishing second, only to be relegated to fifth for interference in the Cox Plate, she never raced in Australia again. A heavy track ruled out a defence of her Melbourne Cup crown and her next start was in the Japan Cup, but after suffering a bleeding attack, the decision was made to transfer her to United States trainer Ron McAnally and continue her career racing with the use of Lasix.