There are many great events and coveted prizes on the Australian racing calendar, but no others capture attention quite like the Melbourne Cup (3200m).
The Cup has been run every year since 1861 and is among Australia’s most iconic traditions. Flemington becomes the centre of attention on the first Tuesday of every November, with the ‘race that stops a nation’ taking place in front of an on-course crowd of 100,000 and a television audience in the millions.
That phrase could be extended to ‘the race that stops two nations’, with New Zealand similarly swept up in the magic of the Melbourne Cup every November. Part of that enduring popularity stems from the extraordinary success New Zealand has enjoyed in the great race, including two dozen winners sourced from our National Yearling Sales.
Less than three months out from NZB’s big celebration to mark 100 years of the National Yearling Sales Series, and with the 2025 Melbourne Cup Carnival underway, now is an ideal time to look back at some of the most famous Melbourne Cup-winning graduates of New Zealand’s National Yearling Sale.
PHAR LAP
The Melbourne Cup and the New Zealand National Yearling Sale had one of their greatest flagbearers when Phar Lap (NZ) (Night Raid) raced into Australasian sporting folklore in 1930.
Popularly known as ‘Big Red’ and ‘The Red Terror’, and with a name that translates to ‘sky flash’, Phar Lap was born near Timaru in New Zealand’s South Island and was offered at Trentham in 1928, where he was bought for 160 guineas.
The legendary chestnut had 51 starts for 37 wins and five placings. He won 32 of his last 35 races.
Phar Lap won 13 times in his three-year-old season, including the Australian Derby (2400m), VRC Derby (2500m), Rosehill Guineas (1800m), VRC St Leger (2800m), Chipping Norton Stakes (2000m) and AJC St Leger (2800m). He also ran third in that year’s Melbourne Cup.
He went on to win 14 of his 16 starts as a four-year-old in 1930-31 including his famous Melbourne Cup triumph under a weight of 9 stone, 12 ounces – the equivalent of 62.5kg.
Incredibly, Phar Lap won races on all four days of the 1930 Melbourne Cup Carnival at Flemington – the Melbourne Stakes (2000m) on Saturday November 1, the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday November 4, the Linlithgow Stakes (1600m) on Thursday October 6 and the CB Fisher Plate (2400m) on Saturday November 8.
Phar Lap’s unstoppable four-year-old season also featured victories in the Cox Plate (1900m), the St George Stakes (1800m) and Futurity Stakes (1400m).
Phar Lap added a second Cox Plate as a five-year-old, along with the Underwood Stakes (1600m), Memsie Stakes (1800m), Craven Plate (2000m) and Melbourne Stakes, and he then ventured to Mexico and won the US$100,000 Agua Caliente Handicap (2000m) in what would be the final start of his extraordinary career.
Phar Lap was among the inaugural inductees into both the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame and the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. Respected American publication the Blood-Horse magazine voted him the 22nd greatest racehorse of the 20th century.
