{"id":10139,"date":"2012-04-24T12:24:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T12:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blacktypebugler.com\/?p=10139"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"oldbtb_99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/?p=10139","title":{"rendered":"Sydney Derby: A Look Back At The Winners And Their Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you think the Sydney Derby isn\u2019t a huge race or a major launching pad for some of the biggest turf horses in the game, think again. <\/P>

There have been twelve runnings of the 12-furlong Grade 1 Sydney Derby on the turf course in Victoria, dating back to 2000, and this race that will be run this weekend in Victoria has produced incredible riches for the winners and also\u00a0launched some pretty\u00a0big careers.<\/P>

Only two sires have produced multiple winners of the Sydney Derby, and those two sires are Montjeu and A.P. Indy. <\/P>

Montjeu sired back to back winners of the Sydney Derby, when his sons Crusading Enforcer (2009) and Burnt Lawn (2010) won the biggest of the early-season races for three year olds in Australia.<\/P>

A.P. Indy sired two Sydney Derby winners also.\u00a0 His first winning son was Sunnybank Memorial in 2004.\u00a0 Sunnybank Memorial is the richest winner of the Sydney Derby to date, having accumulated over $10.8 million in earnings over his career. <\/P>

And when Death By Laughing crossed the finished line first in the Sydney Derby in 2011, he became the second son of A.P Indy to win the big race down under. <\/P>

While the present-day Sydney Derby purse is $1.6 million, it wasn\u2019t always that way.\u00a0 That present day purse structure started back in 2009, and before that– from 2000-2008–the Sydney Derby was just a million dollar race. <\/P>

As we said above, while Sunnybank Memorial is the richest of all the horses to have won the Sydney Derby with $10.8 million in career earnings, the horse that is second to him in that department isn\u2019t that far behind.\u00a0 The 2005 Sydney Derby winner, Horseshoe Bay, won $10.5 million in his career.<\/P>

Crusading Enforcer, who won this race in 2009, comes in third in the earnings department with $7.7 million, and right behind him in fourth place for career earnings is 2008 Sydney Derby winner Portman\u2019s Perfect, who won $7.1 million on the track over the years.<\/P>

All told, the 12 Sydney Derby winners have combined to earn a little over $55 million over their careers, meaning the median average winnings for each of the 12 Sydney Derby winners comes out to about $4.5 million–and counting.\u00a0 Cha Ching!\u00a0\u00a0 Remember, four of these past 12\u00a0Sydney Derby winners are still active on the track. <\/P>

Let\u2019s take a look the different nationalities of sires of horses who have won the Sydney Derby.<\/P>

Altogether, the 12 Derby winners\u2019 sires have hailed from three different continents and five different countries. <\/P>

The Americans have, by far, dominated this race over the years. <\/P>

No less than six American-bred horses have won the Sydney Derby, and all of them were bred in Kentucky, except one.\u00a0 Sal Is Gone (2001), Sunnybank Memorial (2004), Kirby\u2019s Best Yet (2007), Portman\u2019s Perfect (2008) and Death By Laughing (2011) were the Kentucky-breds who won the Sydney Derby.\u00a0 The only non-Kentucky-bred American horse to win the\u00a0Derby was Equestrian Order (2004), and he was foaled in Washington state.\u00a0 <\/P>

Ireland would be the next biggest producer of Sydney Derby winners behind the Americans. The Irish have won this race three times since 2000.\u00a0 Cortez (2006), Crusading Enforcer (2009) and Burnt Lawn (2010) were the three Irish-breds to win the Sydney Derby. <\/P>

Great Britain has one winner. The inaugural 2000 Sydney Derby winner, Duke Three (sired by the great Diesis) hailed from the island nation. New Zealand also has one winner, and that was the son of Zabeel, a horse by the name of Mighty Dancer (2002).<\/P>

The home court advantage hasn\u2019t held well for Australian-breds running in the Sydney Derby. Only one Aussie-bred horse, Horseshoe Bay (2005), has won the Sydney Derby.<\/P>

The Sydney Derby has failed to produce a multiple graded stakes winner only once, and that was Equestrian Order (2003), whose lone graded win of his career\u00a0came right\u00a0here in Victoria that year. He would never win a graded race before or after his big win in the Sydney Derby. <\/P>

Speaking of graded winners, the 12 horses who have won the Sydney Derby\u00a0have won an incredible combined 74 graded stakes races, including their wins in the\u00a0Derby.<\/P>

Leading the way in graded stakes wins, of course, is the richest winner of the Sydney Derby, 2004 winner Sunnybank Memorial, who won an amazing 21 graded stakes races over the course of his illustrious career.<\/P>

Sunnybank Memorial, arguably the best of the Sydney Derby winners, hit the graded winner\u2019s circle nine times as a three year old and 12 times as a four year old. <\/P>

The next year\u2019s winner, Horseshoe Bay in 2005, produced the second most graded stakes\u00a0wins of any Sydney Derby winner.\u00a0 The only Aussie-bred to win this race in his home country won 18 graded stakes in all.\u00a0 He won six as a three year old, and he came back in his four year old campaign to record 12 graded wins, equaling the four year old campaign of Sunnybank Memorial. <\/P>

Coming in third in most graded wins is 2009 Sydney Derby winner Crusading Enforcer, who has won nine graded stakes races over the course of his career.<\/P>

Only one horse has come to the Sydney Derby undefeated and left undeafeted after it was over. That was Kirby\u2019s Best Yet, who won this race\u00a0in 2007.\u00a0\u00a0 He was a perfect 5-5 coming into the Sydney Derby, and he would go on to win the first nine races of his career, before he finally tasted defeat in the Grade 1 Owner\u2019s Stakes later in his three year old season, after his win here in Victoria.<\/P>

The Sydney Derby has been a\u00a0launching pad for future Derby de English winners. \u00a0No less than five of the 12 Sydney Derby winners went on to win the Grade 1 Derby de English, starting in 2004, with Sunnybank Memorial.\u00a0 The following year,\u00a0Horseshoe Bay would also\u00a0go on to win the Sydney Derby and follow it up with a win in the Derby de English.<\/P>

The other three horses to pull a Sydney Derby-Derby de English double were Kirby\u2019s Best Yet (2007), Portman\u2019s Perfect (2008) and Crusading Enforcer (2009). No horse has pulled off the Sydney-Derby de English double since 2009. <\/P>

<\/P>

Back in the early days of this race, the natural progression for Sydney Derby winners was that the winners would go on to run in–and usually\u00a0win–the Grade 1 Adelaide Derby. Four winners of the Sydney Derby have also\u00a0won the Adelaide Derby.\u00a0 Duke Three (who won the 2000 version of the Sydney Derby), Sal is Gone (2001), Sunnybank Memorial (2004) and Horseshoe Bay (2005) all went on to win the Grade 1 Adelaide Derby after their big wins in Victoria.<\/P>

Horseshoe Bay, a son of Red Ransom, was the sole Aussie-bred to win this race, but he also had another distinction that set him apart from all the other Sydney Derby winners over the years–a very important distinction, in fact.<\/P>

While he was the only Aussie-bred to win this race on his home court, so to speak, the Australians can boast something of their Derby winner that no other country can. <\/P>

Their home-bred winner, Horseshoe Bay, would go on to become the only Sdyney Derby champion to go on to capture multiple Breeders\u2019 Bowl Turf championship wins. <\/P>

Horseshoe Bay scored in the Breeders\u2019 Bowl Turf\u00a0the same year he captured the Sydney Derby (2005), and then he repeated his Breeders\u2019 Bowl Turf triumph in 2006.\u00a0 Horseshoe Bay nearly made it a perfect 3-3 on Breeder\u2019s Bowl Day in 2007, but he would finish third in the world championships that year, beaten 3 \u00be lengths by Lex Luthor, who finished second in–you guessed it–the Sydney Derby in 2006.<\/P>

And last–but definitely not least of all the factoids surrounding the amazing Sydney Derby–is this little teensy weensy one. <\/P>

While this race is called the Sydney Derby, it is held at Victoria Race Course, for some reason.\u00a0 And, as we all know, Sydney is located in New South Wales (wink).<\/P><\/SPAN><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia’s Biggest Early Season 3 YO Turf Race <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}