Phar Lap was the first horse to earn $100,000 in prizemoney in Australia. He won 37 of 51 starts (72.54%).
Tulloch was the first horse to earn $200,000 in prizemoney in Australia. He won 36 of 53 starts (67.92%).
Gunsynd was the first horse to earn $250,000 in prizemoney in Australia. He won 29 of 54 starts (53.70%).
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Kingston Town was the first thoroughbred to ever earn in excess of US$1 million outside the northern hemisphere. When he won the 1980 Cox Plate he took his earnings to AUS$930,000 - and with the current exchange rate at the time AUS$850,000 equalled just over one million US dollars.*
(*source January 1981 Turf Monthly).
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Ajax, best remembered for his shock defeat at 40/1 on in a three horse race, won 36 of his 46 starts. On the day he got beaten at 40/1 on, he was going for 19 wins straight. His 18 successive wins, at that point in time was a record in Australian thoroughbred history.
Only Sava Jet (22 straight wins), Black Caviar (21 straight Australian wins and then one win in England), Miss Petty (21), Picnic In The Park (21), Shackle Bar (20), Gloaming (19) and Desert Gold (19) have beaten Ajax’s record since he retired.
Ajax ran track records from 5 furlongs (1000 metres) to 9.5 furlongs (1900 metres).
Ajax wasn’t viewed favourably by many turf historians due to jockey Darby Munro once calling the stallion “a meat pie champion.”
Ajax retired to stud duties as a 6YO.
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Former Sky Channel Racing Retro panellist Alf Matthews suffered an asthma attack on his first day as a 25-year-old apprentice in a racing stable, due to the stench of horse manure and almost left before he started. He stuck around, and as an apprentice won an Adelaide Cup (Soulman – 1975), Epsom Handicap (La Neige – 1976), Blue Diamond Stakes (Out of Danger – 1976), Craven A Stakes (Maybe Mahal – 1976), Coongy Handicap (Northbridge Lad – 1976) as well as a host of other black type races.
Matthews was about as popular as a pork chop at a synagogue when he won the Epsom on La Neige, as his mount was 100/1, and the horse he beat in a photo was no other than the favourite Tiger Town.
When he won the Blue Diamond on Out of Danger, that galloper started at 40/1 and defeated the 5/2 on stablemate Desirable.
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Highly emotional scenes followed Tulloch’s last start victory in the 1961 Brisbane Cup. Jockey George Moore and trainer Tommy Smith reportedly “shed tears unashamedly” at the champion’s victory at his racetrack swansong. Tulloch beat Sharply in the Brisbane Cup, reversing the placings of the Sydney Cup where Sharply had defeated Tulloch carrying 36 pounds (about 16 kilos) less.
Tulloch retired to a stud career at owner Haley’s “Te Koona” property upon his racetrack retirement.
The stallion had limited success at stud and died in 1969 – aged just 15.
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A recording artist made a song about Brisbane jockey Pam O’Neill.
On the flip side was the song about a female footy fan trying to get to the match on time.
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The first Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe (1920) winner, Comrade, cost just 25 guineas (about Australian $52.50) as a yearling. When the public refused to put in a bid for the “plain looking yearling”, trainer Peter Gilpin made the lone bid for the horse merely to save the horse’s breeder Ludwig Neumann the embarrassment of not having a bid for his horse, as Neumann was a client of his stable. Comrade suffered only one defeat in his career, and that was when he ran second to Orpheus in the Champion Stakes at Newmarket. He was retired to stud in France after wealthy studmaster Monsieur de Saint-Alary had paid a lot of money for a half share in his three year old. In his Arc win Comrade was ridden by Australian jockey Frank Bullock.
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