Makybe Diva, the legendary three-time Melbourne Cup winner has died at the age of 27.
A two-time Australian Horse of the Year, she won 15 races and over $14million in prizemoney with her first Melbourne Cup win coming in 2003 when trained by David Hall.
Switched to Lee Freedman, she repeated in the 2004 and then 2005 editions to become the only three-time winner of the race, ridden by Glenn Boss in them all.
She also proved herself at weight for age, with wins in the Cox Plate and Australian Cup over 2000m.
She finished her career with 11 stakes wins, including seven at Group One level.
Melbourne Cup G1 3200m (three times)
Sydney Cup G1 3200m
WS Cox Plate G1 2040m
The BMW G1 2400m
Australian Cup G1 2000m
VRC Queen Elizabeth Stakes G2 2500m
Memsie Stakes G2 1400m
Turnbull Stakes G2 2000m
Werribee Cup L 2000m
When Makybe Diva retired to stud for Tony Santic, her first two foals, a colt by Galileo and a filly by Fusaichi Pegasus (USA) were both offered for sale at Inglis Easter.
The colt sold for $1.5million and won two races as a gelding under the name of Rockstardom and the filly La Dolce Diva sold $1.2million, but failed to place in four starts.
Subsequent yearlings from Makybe Diva were sold for varying amounts over the years with the most successful on the track being All Too Hard mare Divanation, who sold as a yearling for $300,000 at Inglis Premier in 2016 and won a couple of races as well as gaining Black Type with a second in the Listed Warrnambool Cup.
She has five daughters at stud.
