Hack to Cup hero
Thirty-four years ago this week in a matter of minutes a Taranaki farm horse became world famous. Kelvin Teixeira recalls the feat.
Chestnut gelding Kiwi’s remarkable dash to victory in the 123rd running of the Melbourne Cup in 1983 remains one of the greatest triumphs of the historic race that stops the Australasian racing world for about five minutes on the first Tuesday each November.
At the 2200 metre mark and with just 1000m to go on the Flemington track, Kiwi and New Zealand jockey Jim Cassidy began a breath-taking burst to go from the back of the field, taking an outside line and flying past 22 rivals to win by just over a length.
Against the odds, 10-to-one actually, they had claimed the coveted Melbourne Cup, the southern hemisphere’s most prestigious horse race.
So quick was Kiwi’s run down the home straight that race commentators only picked up on him towards the finish line, with the call ‘‘and here comes Kiwi out of the blue!’’.
Who would have thought? Handed a microphone afterwards, co-owner and trainer Ewen ‘‘Snow’’ Lupton even admitted: ‘‘I didn’t have a penny on him. I never bet much, but I had bet nothing on him.’’
The 63-year-old said it was ‘‘the greatest thrill of our lives’’.
Kiwi’s achievement remains a source of great New Zealand pride.
Snow’s wife Anne Lupton had bought the Dargaville-bred horse as a yearling for $1000. She named him Kiwi, unaware of how iconic that would become. Initially, Kiwi was used to help round up sheep on their farm in Waverley, South Taranaki, just north-west of Whanganui.
Snow identified that the young horse showed promise as a distance runner, and so began the training. Kiwi continued to round up sheep as part of his conditioning routine.
Several years later and with sights set on a big race, the Luptons entered him in the Wellington Cup run at Trentham racecourse in January 1983. In the race, Kiwi also settled at the rear of the field, waiting until the home straight to make his move, flying to take the win. it was a sign of things to come.
Kiwi’s form was confirmed further when later in the year he claimed the 2100m Egmont Cup at Hawera.
But it had been the win over the Wellington Cup’s 3200m distance, the same as the Melbourne Cup, which had the Luptons thinking even bigger.
And, as it turned out, Kiwi made history by becoming the first horse to win a Wellington Cup and a Melbourne Cup.
To add to the remarkable feat, Kiwi went straight into the Melbourne Cup without even laying eyes on an Australian race track, let alone racing on one.
To many Australian racing experts this was unheard of and even considered by some as sacrilegious to such an event.
While his Cup rivals had been doing their various training routines, working with gear changes, wearing blinkers and shadow rolls, Kiwi had been relaxing in a paddock on Mornington Peninsula, about 90 minutes south of Melbourne, mixing with cattle and sheep in the fields around him – just like home. Kiwi’s pre-race training involved his usual light workout over pasture and a few rounds of the track at the farm.
According to the record books, Kiwi was doing it all wrong. No horse until then had won the Melbourne Cup without a lead-up race somewhere in Australia. But he did.
Back in Waverley, about 200 people out of the small town’s population of 1000 had gathered at the Waverley Hotel while another
200 were at the nearby Clarendon Hotel to watch live television coverage of the Cup.
The race run, the victory confirmed, the festivities erupted.
The television coverage of Kiwi’s win remains among the most replayed as Melbourne Cup fever builds every year.
Kiwi was controversially scratched from the 1984 Cup, amid claims of bad sportsmanship. A year later he returned, finishing fifth. He ran again in 1986 but pulled up lame close to the finish line. A month later he represented New Zealand in the Japan Cup, running a creditable fifth.
During his racing career, Kiwi notched up 13 wins from his 60 starts, earning almost NZ$550,000 in stakes.
After his run in Japan, Kiwi was retired to the Lupton family farm. He died in 1995 and is buried on the farm, with a headstone stating simply: ‘‘Kiwi, 1983 Melbourne Cup’’. A commemorative plaque is also displayed at the Waverley Racecourse.
Snow Lupton died in 2004, aged
84, and Anne in 2008 at 75.