Leilani: The will to win

Think of the greatest race mares of recent decades – sprinters and stayers. Before Winx and Black Caviar, there was Makybe Diva. Before Makybe Diva, there was Sunline. These champions won the hearts not just of racing fans, but of all Australia.  

​Before them, there was Leilani – the beautiful black or brown New Zealand-bred filly by Oncidium from Lei. It is fifty years since she won the Australian Cup as a four-year-old mare, in March 1975.

It was her thirteenth win in her first twenty starts, and what a collection of victories these had been. After taking the Princess Handicap (Adrian Knox Stakes) and AJC Oaks at Randwick as a three-year-old, Leilani in the spring of 1974 won the Turnbull Stakes, Toorak Handicap, Caulfield Cup and Mackinnon Stakes. She came into the 1974 Melbourne Cup as a firm favourite but, ridden by Sydney jockey Peter Cook, was beaten into second place by her dour stablemate, Think Big.  

Right from the start, Leilani had secured more than her share of publicity, as much for her good looks and ability – she won at her first start in South Australia – as for her glamorous, high-profile owners. Bart Cummings secured a lease of Leilani as a yearling filly from her breeder, Ian MacRae, and throughout her turf career she raced in Australia under the partnership of Andrew and Susan Peacock and Ian and Elizabeth Rice. 

At a Melbourne Cup symposium at the National Museum in 2010, Andrew Peacock looked back, with mock seriousness, on that 1974 defeat, in contradistinction to losing Federal elections, twice, as Leader of the Opposition, to Bob Hawke: 

‘I even got 52 per cent in an election once and lost it. I have had a few disappointments. I can tell you there is no more distressing, depressing moment than having the favourite that runs second in the Melbourne Cup. Whatever the tribulation in life may be, nothing is quintessentially as bad as that.’ 

With Leilani, there was soon consolation. Five days after that Melbourne Cup defeat, she returned to Flemington and easily won the 2500-metre Queen’s Cup. The next autumn she was back in action, immediately triumphing in the Orr Stakes at Sandown, the St George Stakes at Caulfield and the Queen’s Plate at Flemington, all at weight-for-age.  

The 1975 Australian Cup of 2000 metres was next on the list. Until 1979 this historic autumn feature (originally a 3627-metre marathon) was always a handicap race. Leilani was allocated topweight, with 58.5 kilograms on her back, two kilograms over weight-for-age. Roy Higgins had ridden her in seven of her previous wins and was again in the saddle. Leilani hit the lead in the straight but was challenged by Tudor Peak, a Bendigo Cup winner, and St Martin, a tough gelding trained by Tommy Smith. Thirty metres from the post, the mare was barely a head in front. Defeat seemed certain. Yet Higgins had a way of lifting a horse in a tight finish, and the crowd pushed with its own willpower. Leilani held on to win by half a length. One reporter tried to describe the excitement. It sounds modest by today’s expectations, but it was loud and sustained.  

‘Scenes never before seen on a racecourse greeted Leilani and Roy Higgins as they returned to scale. Cheers and handclapping reached a crescendo as trainer Bart Cummings greeted the pair in the winner’s stall.’ 

​Bart was still in the early stages of his career, with a mere three (of an ultimate twelve) Melbourne Cups to his credit. This was his third Australian Cup success. Altogether he would win this race a record thirteen times, but Leilani’s victory as topweight under handicap conditions was among the greatest.

And Leilani’s Australian Cup win was surely the best in her career, eclipsing even the previous year’s easy Caulfield Cup victory. She was duly anointed Australian Champion Racehorse for 1974-75.  

Leilani’s racing career continued with seven more starts at top level for three seconds, two thirds and a repeat win in the St George Stakes. She would have won a second VRC Queen’s Plate had her saddle not slipped: even so, she finished second. Injured in the 1976 Tancred Cup at Rosehill, she returned to her breeder for a stud career in New Zealand.  

Roy Higgins understood and amplified the public affection for Leilani. After that famous Australian Cup win, he told reporters he had ‘fallen head over heels in love’. He said the day would come when he and Leilani would be beaten, and he knew she would be as disappointed as he. Leilani had a fighting desire to win, he said, and would give everything if challenged. ‘I’ve found that courage in only three other racehorses. Light Fingers and Aquanita had it and, in modern times, Gunsynd had it.’ Grand company.