From our vantage point in 2026, we can look back at modern Cox Plate history and marvel at how quickly the years are passing.
Already, there are a generation of racing fans who were children when the great Winx won her first of four Cox Plates in 2015!
Since then, they've watched Via Sistina go back to back in the great WFA championship of Australasia, but they would have no “lived memory” of Sunline's own back to back triumphs in 1999 / 2000, nor of her monumental battle with Northerly and Viscount the following year.
For this generation of young racegoers, Sunline has ascended to her place in racing folklore alongside the immortals, but for those of us with lived memory Sunline remains in our mind's eye.
Sunline won both the last Cox Plate of the old century and the first Cox Plate of the new. She won so much more, but these were the defining moments of a true champion.
Let's gallop down memory lane with the fearless, peerless daughter of Desert Sun!
Sunline was born on 29th September 1995 at Pleasanton Stud near Cambridge, New Zealand.
The rich bay filly had not a fleck of white upon her, and was neither pretty nor petite. The sturdy foal was a member of the first crop sired by the imported Desert Sun (GB) - an early harbinger of the greatness of his Green Desert sireline, which now sits atop the global ranks of influence.
As the baby grew and frolicked beside her dam Songline ( Western Symphony) in that fabled horse-growing countryside, her breeders Susan Archer and Michael Martin were well pleased with what they saw.
The little chunker was built more like a colt than a filly, and she had the attitude to match- a warrior queen.
Her imposing presence and physicality would become part of her legend.
Despite widely-held beliefs about untamed stallions ruling over their domains, in reality a herd of wild horses is always presided over by an alpha mare - and Sunline was an alpha with a capital A.
Once she had reached her full and splendid maturity, it was fascinating to watch other horses respond to Sunline's imposing presence in the parade ring.
She ruled the roost and they knew it. They were innately aware of her superior status, even before they had raced against her. Once Sunline had run them into the ground out on the track, the majority were nothing less than permanently intimidated.
Every powerful line of Sunline spoke of her brutish athletic prowess, and when her domineering personality was added to the mix, she was a creature to inspire pure awe.
Sunline was the second foal and the only filly from three foals bred from her dual stakes placed dam Songline, a winner of five races.
It had been her breeder’s intent to race Sunline themselves, but personal circumstances intervened and she was leased to Takanini trainer Trevor McKee. The lease included an option to buy for $40,000. McKee trained Sunline in partnership with son Stephen, and raced her with Thayne Green and Helen Lusty, who had been involved with the successful stayer Interval, who was out of Sunline's grand dam McAngus.
Sunline was always feisty and wilful. She wasn’t an easy youngster to break in or educate, but eventually she was ready to trial. Her first public appearance resulted in her throwing the rider twice, before getting loose and bolting a lap of the track!
Once the headstrong filly got to the races, she went unbeaten in three starts as a juvenile in NZ, the third being the Listed Breeders Classic over 1200m. In each of these victories she came from off the pace to win comfortably.
First up at three, the McKees experimented with a change of tactics. Her jockey was instructed to lead the 1200m race, and Sunline duly bolted in. It was time for her first trip across the ditch!
The target was Sydney's rich Princess Series. On a heavy track, Sunline swept the 1400m Furious Stakes by six lengths, and lined up for her first start on good ground in the 1500m Tea Rose.
She had drawn the outside gate, and to make matters worse literally went down on her knees when the barriers opened. Somehow jockey Larry Cassidy stayed in the saddle, as the filly scrambled to her feet and got herself into stride.
Soon she was sitting outside the leader, and as the field turned for home she cruised past her. Despite making a mess of the start and petrol she had burned in the run, Sunline burst clear in the straight to score by four lengths.
After this extraordinary performance the option to purchase the rising Kiwi superstar was understandably exercised!
The 1600m Flight Stakes two weeks later was Sunline's first G1 test and she came through with all flags flying. Starting as odds on favourite, she led early but let another filly go to the front mid-race.
Under hands and heels riding, Sunline flew past her at the 250m with another future star, Camarena, in hot pursuit, to no avail - Sunline careered away to a three length triumph and the first of her thirteen G1 wins.
The following autumn, Sunline returned to Sydney to take on the big league in the G1 Doncaster.
This was her first start against older horses and she had drawn wide, but punters had no fear and piled their money on the Kiwi, sending her out as one of the shortest priced favourites in the Doncaster's long history with 52kg to carry.
When the gates flew open Sunline was sooled straight to the front and thereafter led them a merry dance. She rocketed up the famous Randwick rise to score by almost two lengths becoming only the fourth filly in the modern era to win the great race.
The ensuing drought was only broken when current star Sheza Alibi ( 49kg ) romped in the with the Doncaster this year.
Sunline’s spring four year old campaign cemented her status as a superstar, but it wasn't all smooth sailing. She won first up and then was beaten at her next three starts heading to Melbourne for the Cox Plate off a fourth in the G1 Epsom.
When the great day arrived Sunline went to post at Moonee Valley with a new jockey in the saddle - her fellow Kiwi, Greg Childs. Childs had ridden her to two Australian wins as a three year old, and he never got off her again.
The pair silenced the doubters in the most comprehensive manner possible. Sunline was back high rolling in front where she loved to be. She led the Cox Plate field for home and resolutely held off the challenges of two elite middle distance horses in Tie The Knot and Sky Heights to win easily.
The following spring, Melbourne crowds bore witness to the sheer brilliance of Sunline at the peak of her powers.
She tackled elite sprinters first up in the G1 Manikato Stakes (1200m) at her beloved Valley and made a mess of them, winning by three lengths.
She then took the Memsie and Feehan Stakes, but Jack Denham's uber-classy Danzero gelding Fairway nutted her on the line in the Turnbull before it was back to Moonee Valley for her second Cox Plate.
It proved to be an utter procession. On the rain affected track Sunline assumed control at the 800m, and the further they went the more dominant she became. As she whizzed around the home turn, only the Caulfield Cup winner Diatribe and the gritty Referral could rouse a yelp of protest, but she had lengths on them.
Luminaries like Tie The Knot, Shogun Lodge and Sky Heights were left in another postcode as the great mare unleashed what most consider to be her finest exhibition of sheer unadulterated power.
The incredible win took her career earnings past $6 million, the first Australasian racehorse ever to pass that milestone. Her seven length winning margin equalled that of the legendary Dulcify.
She returned for another crack at the Cox Plate the following year and while a third victory was just not in her stars, the race produced one of the Cox Plate epic battles that are exactly why the Moonee Valley marketing machine has coined the phrase- Where Legends Are Made.
Northerly was on the path to creating his own legend and took the win in a fierce finish with Sunline a fighting second.
A massive crowd poured into Moonee Valley to watch Sunline contest her fourth Cox Plate and final race. The McKees had announced that, win or lose, the curtain would come down on one of the greatest thoroughbred shows on earth.
Everybody wanted to be there to farewell the queen. Sunline had been the darling of racing fans and media for so long. Dreams were held that she would bow out with a fairytale win, but it was not to be.
Sunline led but could not hold off the challengers with Northerly, Defier and Grandera relegating her to fourth.
Nobody had a closer relationship with Sunline than her strapper and constant companion Claire Bird although the pair had their moments.
Sunline was aggressive in the stable and would frequently bite, rear up or otherwise contrive to inflict damage on her devoted caretaker, but she would follow Claire to the ends of the earth.
“I was 21 when I started looking after her,” Claire recalled in later years.
“She didn’t give up. You had to fight with her to do a few things, but once she realised you were trying to work with her, not against her, she would work with you. You wouldn’t want to get into an argument with Sunline - because you’d never win.”
Bird regards Sunline's second Cox Plate victory in 2000 as her best win, closely followed by her epic Hong Kong Mile battle against the champion Fairy King Prawn.
“She was so dominant in the second Cox Plate. Then in Hong Kong, she got beaten the year before and they all said she wasn’t as good as they thought. To beat their best (Fairy King Prawn) was pretty satisfying”.
“She travelled, she was never scratched from a race which she was paid-up for. She was just a tough, tough horse. She never avoided anything, she took on the best in the world and most of all, she won.”
Sunline retired to the McKee’s property near Auckland to commence her stud career. As with many truly great racemares, she could not reproduce anything like her own ability - but it is also often the case that such mares pop up a few generations later in the pedigrees of champions, so we live in hope.
Sunline’s stud career came to a halt when she began to be troubled by the horse lover’s dread - laminitis. Sunline fought hard for twelve months, but the time came when nothing more could be done.
The Queen was euthanised on the morning of May 1st 2009, in her paddock at Takinini, she was thirteen years old.
The grieving McKee family requested that Sunline be buried at the ARC’s Ellerslie racecourse, so that her adoring public could always visit her.
Amongst the countless tributes that flowed from around the world on Sunline's passing, I loved this one from the NZTBA:
Her magnificent physique, ferocious competitive spirit, and indomitable courage were all that any breeder could hope to produce….
Sunline is her own benchmark.
