Sunline made an industry great even greater
TREVOR McKee deserved to train a horse like Sunline. Even without her, McKee, who died on April 5, aged 81, would have been a New Zealand horse racing great.
You can’t train as successfully for as long as Mr McKee did and touch the lives of so many people without earning a special place in the industry.
A former jockey and even onetime cook in the New Zealand Army, it was as a horse trainer Mr McKee found his calling in life.
Horse training suited him, with its relentless workload and attention to detail, as well as the love of the animal.
All those attributes helped Mr McKee become one of the greats of his industry, training more than 1200 winners in his career, many with his son, Stephen.
‘‘Dad was good at it because horse training is hard work and he never minded hard work,’’ Stephen said.
‘‘He would go anywhere to win a race, especially in the early days, often driving those long hours in the float himself.
‘‘He was old school and liked to do things his way because he never shirked that work.’’
Trevor John McKee was born in Thames Valley on September 22, 1937, and started in racing as a jockey before moving into training.
After training briefly in Pukekohe, McKee moved to Takanini and was one of the reasons the training centre became the most feared in New Zealand racing.
‘‘He had a lot of good horses but often he would get them racing then sell them,’’ Stephen said.
‘‘He was a businessman as well as a trainer. And good at both.’’
The McKee colours were already famous in New Zealand racing when the horse who could carry them into the world stage came along.
Sunline was the horse that trainers dare not dream of getting. After all, not many get to train ‘‘the mare of the world’’, let alone partown her.
Almost too good to race at home in New Zealand, Sunline regularly smashed Australia’s best.
It is 20 years since she won the Doncaster as a 3yearold, a high seemingly impossible to top.
Sunline topped it several times, and her second Cox Plate win in 2000 remains one of Australasian racing’s greatest moments.
Two starts later, that ‘‘mare of the world’’ tag was earned in the Hong Kong Mile, maybe the fondest racing memory for father and son.
‘‘We had a lot of special wins together, but Hong Kong was different, because we had been beaten there the year before and it is so hard to win those races,’’ Stephen recalled.
‘‘So we enjoyed that one.
‘‘But Dad was far more than just Sunline. And I was lucky because I got spend so much time with him because we worked together.’’
McKee was much more than just a horse trainer or even the trainer of Sunline.
But the champion mare meant more people got to meet the trainer, enjoy the alwaysoffered handshake and listen to his measured words. So for that, Sunline is owed a debt.
McKee, who was awarded the ONZM in 2002, is survived by his wife, Noeline, Stephen, daughters Donna and Suzanne, five grandchildren and one greatgrandchild. — NZME