Behind The Equinics Scene

Introducing the Equinics: Racing Legends Reborn

Every two years, the residencies of the Derby Fever Horse Racing Game go head-to-head at the Equinics, and this year the spotlight falls on the horses and characters who’ve given Australian racing its folklore.

Saturday’s Brisbane card runs on turf, with all twelve races named for racehorses who became household names.

Sunday’s Perth card shifts to dirt, honouring the trainers, jockeys and race-callers whose voices and instincts shaped the sport.

In Race-book order this a brief history of who the Equinics Races were named after in 2026

MING DYNASTY

A grey gelding trained and part-owned by the incomparable Bart Cummings, Ming Dynasty is one of only a handful of horses to win the Caulfield Cup twice, three years apart in 1977 and 1980. His second win, at odds of 50-1 while carrying 58kg as a seven-year-old, saw him beat a Melbourne Cup winner and the champion Kingston Town in one of the great staying upsets. He also captured back-to-back Australian Cups two years apart, showing the kind of durability that made him a byword for staying power on the Australian turf.

VO ROGUE

A champion Queensland-trained gelding who built his following on daring front-running tactics, Vo Rogue would sprint clear early and dare the rest of the field to catch him. Neither his sire nor his dam had ever won a race, yet he amassed 26 wins, 23 placings and over $3.1 million in prize money across four states. He won from the 1200m William Reid Stakes right out to back-to-back Australian Cups in 1989 and 1990, and his exploits were such box office that his exploits were dubbed “The Vo Rogue Show” for five straight years.

GUNSYND

Bought for just $1,300 by four mates from the border town of Goondiwindi, Gunsynd — the “Goondiwindi Grey” — became one of the most beloved horses in Australian racing history. Under trainer T.J. Smith he reeled off seven straight wins before capturing the 1972 Cox Plate, a run that made him the biggest money-winner in Australian racing history at the time. Famous for showboating in the winner’s circle — bowing to the crowd and refusing to walk off until he got his applause — he was immortalised in song and inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.

LUSKIN STAR

Trained out of a provincial Newcastle stable by the then largely unknown Max Lees, Luskin Star exploded onto the scene with a 12-length win on debut before capturing the Sydney two-year-old Triple Crown — the Golden Slipper, Sires’ Produce and Champagne Stakes — with a combined winning margin of 16 lengths. His Golden Slipper romp, a seven-length victory in race record time, remains unmatched decades on. He retired after just 17 starts with 13 wins, and is remembered as one of the best two-year-olds Australia has produced.

ROUGH HABIT

A New Zealand-bred gelding trained by John Wheeler, Rough Habit became a Queensland winter carnival institution, winning the Doomben Cup three years running (1991–1993) among his 11 Group One victories. Named New Zealand Horse of the Year twice, he raced from age three to eight and retired with nearly $3.9 million in prize money — a working man’s champion who thrived on the Brisbane tracks that now carry his name in tribute.

NORTHERLY

Known as “The Fighting Tiger” for his yellow-and-black silks, Northerly was a West Australian-trained galloper who became one of the toughest middle-distance horses Australia has produced. Trained by Fred Kersley, he won back-to-back Cox Plates in 2001 and 2002 and staged some of the most memorable head-to-head battles in modern racing history against the champion mare Sunline. He won 19 of 37 starts, nine at Group One level, and earned over $9.3 million.

LIGHT FINGERS

A diminutive New Zealand-bred mare barely bigger than a pony, Light Fingers gave Bart Cummings the first of his record 12 Melbourne Cups in 1965 — famously dead-heating on the line with her own stablemate Ziema before being awarded the win by a photo. Cummings initially thought she was too small to amount to anything. She proved him spectacularly wrong, winning the Wakeful Stakes, VRC Oaks and AJC Oaks before her Cup triumph.

MANIKATO

A chestnut gelding who cost just $3,500 as a yearling, Manikato became the second Australian horse (after Kingston Town) to pass $1 million in prize money. Trained by Bon and later Bob Hoysted, he won the Golden Slipper, Blue Diamond and Caulfield Guineas as a two-year-old and went on to claim five straight William Reid Stakes at his beloved home track of Moonee Valley, where he’s buried after his death in 1984.

KINGSTON TOWN

Trained by T.J. Smith and ridden in most of his wins by Malcolm Johnston, Kingston Town is the only horse to win three consecutive Cox Plates (1980–1982). A black gelding who struggled on Melbourne’s left-handed tracks but was near unbeatable in Sydney — winning 21 races in a row at one stage — he became the first Australian horse to earn $1 million in prize money. His gutsy, sesamoid-troubled 1982 Cox Plate win, called by Bill Collins with the line “Kingston Town can’t win!” moments before he did exactly that, remains one of the most replayed calls in Australian racing.

SUPER IMPOSE

A New Zealand-bred gelding trained by Lee Freedman, Super Impose became an anomaly among thoroughbreds for his sheer longevity, still winning at the top level as an eight-year-old. He won back-to-back Doncaster and Epsom Handicap doubles in 1990 and 1991, then capped his career with a Cox Plate win in 1992 at age eight — the oldest winner in the race’s history. He retired with a then-Australasian record $5.6 million in prize money.

ETHEREAL

A New Zealand-bred, owned and trained mare, Ethereal completed the rare Caulfield Cup–Melbourne Cup double in 2001, becoming just the third mare and eleventh horse to do so. Trained by Sheila Laxon — who became the first woman to officially train a Melbourne Cup winner — Ethereal ran down Give the Slip in the final strides of the 2001 Melbourne Cup to seal the historic double, having claimed the Queensland Oaks earlier that year.

SUNLINE

A champion New Zealand-bred mare trained by Trevor and Stephen McKee, Sunline won back-to-back Cox Plates in 1999 and 2000 and was rated the world’s champion turf mare. She won 32 of her 48 career starts, 13 at Group One level, and earned close to $14 million — for a time the biggest stakes-winner in Australasian history. Her rivalry with Northerly produced some of the most dramatic weight-for-age racing Australia has seen, and she was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame while still racing — a rare honour.

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BART CUMMINGS

Known as the “Cups King,” Bart Cummings trained a record 12 Melbourne Cup winners across a 43-year career, starting with Light Fingers in 1965. Son of trainer Jim Cummings, who won the 1950 Melbourne Cup with Comic Court, Bart went on to add seven Caulfield Cups, five Cox Plates, four Golden Slippers and thirteen Australian Cups to his tally. He trained more than 260 stakes winners in total and remains an Australian cultural icon, having been declared a National Living Treasure during his lifetime.

COLIN HAYES

Founder of the legendary Lindsay Park training complex in South Australia’s Barossa Valley, Colin Hayes trained 5,333 winners across a 43-year career, including two Melbourne Cups, three Cox Plates and a Caulfield Cup. He considered the ill-fated stayer Dulcify — who won the 1979 Cox Plate by a record seven lengths before breaking down fatally in that year’s Melbourne Cup — the best horse he ever trained. Hayes won an extraordinary 13 consecutive Melbourne training premierships and built a training dynasty that now spans three generations.

T J SMITH

Thomas John “Tommy” Smith dominated Sydney racing for over three decades, winning the Sydney trainers’ premiership every year from 1953 to 1985 — a record that will likely never be broken. He trained the legendary Tulloch, along with Gunsynd, Kingston Town and Redcraze, and finished his career with 279 Group One wins, more than any other Australian trainer. His daughter, Gai Waterhouse, became one of the country’s leading trainers in her own right.

BILL COLLINS

Dubbed “The Accurate One” for his knack of correctly calling even the tightest photo finishes, Bill Collins called a record 34 Melbourne Cups across a broadcasting career spanning nearly 50 years. His commentary of the famous 1986 “Race of the Century” Cox Plate remains one of the most celebrated calls in Australian sport, and his dramatic underestimation of Kingston Town in the 1982 Cox Plate — “Kingston Town can’t win!” — is still replayed decades later.

JOHNNY TAPP

As a child in the 1940s, John Tapp practised race calling by painting paddle pop sticks in racehorse colours and throwing them into a storm drain, calling their “progress” as they floated by. That obsession turned into a 33-year broadcasting career in which he called an estimated 50,000 individual races, becoming the voice of Sydney racing for a whole generation via Channel Nine, 2GB and 2UE. He was awarded an OAM in 1996 and remains active in racing media today.

SCOBIE BREASLEY

Born in Wagga Wagga, Arthur “Scobie” Breasley won an extraordinary five Caulfield Cups — four of them consecutively between 1942 and 1945 — yet the Melbourne Cup eluded him across sixteen attempts. He relocated to England, where he became champion jockey four times and won two Epsom Derbies, aged 50 when he claimed the second on Charlottown in 1966. He was the first inductee into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.

GEORGE MOORE

Widely regarded as Australia’s greatest ever jockey, George Moore partnered the legendary Tulloch in 19 of his 36 wins and went on to conquer Europe, winning the Epsom Derby, the Arc de Triomphe and two English 2000 Guineas. His final ride was a win in the 1971 VRC Derby, and he later became the leading trainer in Hong Kong for 11 of 13 seasons. His 199 Group One wins as a jockey remain a benchmark few have approached.

DARBY MONROE

Known as “The Demon Darb,” Darby Munro was one of the most dynamic and controversial figures ever to grace Australian racing, riding Phar Lap in some of the champion’s earliest wins. He captured three Melbourne Cups — on Peter Pan (1934), Sirius (1944) and Russia (1946) — and dominated weight-for-age racing through the 1930s and ’40s with his uncanny judgement of pace. Fittingly nicknamed for his fearless riding, he won five runnings apiece of the Cox Plate, Victoria Derby and AJC Derby.

ROY HIGGINS

“The Professor,” as Roy Higgins was known for his freakish ability to read a racetrack, rode two of Bart Cummings’ Melbourne Cup winners — Light Fingers in 1965 and Red Handed in 1967. Over a 30-year career he rode 2,312 winners and became one of only a handful of jockeys to complete Australian racing’s “grand slam” — the Golden Slipper, Cox Plate, Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup. He won a record-equalling 11 Melbourne jockeys’ premierships.

NEVILLE BEGG

Starting as a 14-year-old stableboy under trainer Maurice McCarten, Neville Begg went on to train 139 stakes races including 39 at Group One level from his Randwick stable. For nearly two decades he was a fixture near the top of Sydney’s trainers’ table, nine times finishing runner-up to the great T.J. Smith. He was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2016.

PAT HYLAND

Apprenticed at 15 to Warrnambool trainer Jim Moloney, Pat Hyland went on to ride 2,382 winners and became one of only a handful of jockeys to complete racing’s grand slam — the Melbourne Cup (What A Nuisance, 1985), Caulfield Cup (Affinity), Cox Plate (Star Affair) and Golden Slipper (Vain). His Melbourne Cup win came in front of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, who were on course that day. He later forged an equally successful career as a trainer.

SHANE DYE

New Zealand-born and dubbed racing’s “Golden Boy,” Shane Dye won the 1989 Melbourne Cup on Tawriffic in then-record time and remains the only jockey to win four consecutive Golden Slippers, from 1989 to 1992. He added a Cox Plate aboard the champion Octagonal in 1995, and went on to become the leading rider in Hong Kong before finishing his riding career in Mauritius. He retired with 93 Group One wins worldwide.

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From the Goondiwindi Grey to the Fighting Tiger, from the Cups King to the Accurate One, these are the names that have carried Australian racing’s folklore for the better part of a century — and now they carry the hopes of every residency contesting this year’s Equinics. Whether your colours fly on turf in Brisbane or dirt in Perth, good luck to every entrant across both days of competition. Here’s to a fast track, a fair go, and a weekend that does these legendary names proud.