Famous New Zealand Horses

Cardigan Bay, a New Zealand bred pacer who was the first harness horse to win $1 million in North America

Christian Cullen is a standardbred horse and one of New Zealand's best pacers. Named after the New Zealand international rugby union player, Christian Cullen, he won 22 of his 31 starts, and $NZ1,249,150 in prize money. He is best known for his season as a 4 year-old in 1998-99, where he won all of his 12 starts, including the New Zealand and Auckland Cups and the Miracle Mile. This lead to him being crowned Horse of the Year in New Zealand. He was retired from racing in February 2000, but has since fashioned a very successful stud career, including siring the New Zealand Cup winner Mainland Banner.

Stud information on Christian Cullan

Lyell Creek is one of New Zealand's best trotters. Also known as "Creek The Freak", he had 113 starts for 56 wins, 15 seconds and 11 thirds. His fastest mile rate was 1.52.4 and he won $2,256,924 in stake money, which is an Australasian record for a trotter. Lyell Creek won the 2000 Inter Dominion Trotting Championship Grand final at Moonee Valley in Melbourne, taking home $295,000 for his efforts. He also won New Zealand's two biggest trotting races, the Dominion Handicap and the Rowe Cup, both on three occasions.

Lord Module was a champion New Zealand Standardbred racehorse who ran during the 1970s.Arguably the most gifted of all standardbreds and certainly he could have been the greatest of all but he was troubled throughout his career by bad feet; this led to him losing interest in racing and his subsequent retirement. He won the New Zealand cup in 1979 but was banned the following year because of his unruly behavior. However in the final race of the carnival and against one of the best fields ever assembled he finished his career in the best possible way, coming from a hopeless poistion and storming to victory. The race call by Reon Murtha is remembered word for word by many harness fans such was the emotion generated by the performance. Straight after the race the crowd stormed out of the stands towards the great horse as if the stands were on fire. Reon Murtha recalled in an interview (January 2007) how he chocked back the tears saying it was the most emotional moment in his 47 years of race calling A recent poll of current reinsman highlighted their greatest ever horses, Lord Module was the only one who featured more than once of any horse mentioned from the fifties through to the eighties.

Desert Gold was a famous and successful New Zealand thoroughbred racehorse who raced at the time of World War I. Owned by T. H. Lowry, the mare won many races named after her today in New Zealand. She raced in Australia and New Zealand, winning 36 races, including a still-standing record of 19 in a row. In 1914, she won the Great Northern Foal Stakes and Royal Stakes, the Manawatu Sires Produce Stakes, and the North Island Challenge Stakes. In her final season of racing, Desert Gold defeated the 3-year-old colt Gloaming in the 1919 Taranaki Stakes. Desert Gold retired with a record of 59 Starts: 36-13-4 and earnings of £23,133.

Sir Tristram (IRE) is a thoroughbred horse and the sire of Champion racehorses in Australia and New Zealand. His progeny have won the Melbourne Cup on three occasions, and he has sired an extraordinary 45 Group One winners.

Phar Lap, a giant chestnut thoroughbred gelding, is considered by many to be New Zealand's greatest racehorse, and is a much loved national icon in both New Zealand and Australia, where he was trained and raced. At the time of his death in 1932, Phar Lap was the third highest stake-winner in the world. At the height of his powers, bookmakers offered very short odds on him, even refusing to accept any bets on some races.

Phar Lap was foaled on 4 October 1926 in Timaru in the South Island of New Zealand. He was sired by Night Raid (b United Kingdom 1918) out of dam Entreaty (b New Zealand 1920). However, he never raced in New Zealand; following his purchase he was taken to Australia where he dominated the racing scene during a long and distinguished racing career.

Standing 17.1 hands, he was sometimes called "Australia's wonder horse" in that country. He was also called "The Red Terror" and "Big Red", the same nicknames given to two of the greatest US racehorses, Man o' War and Secretariat.

His mounted hide is displayed at the Melbourne Museum, his skeleton at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and his heart at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Kindergarten (foaled 1937) was a New Zealand racehorse during the early 1940s. He won many of the premier events in New Zealand including the Wellington Cup and Auckland Cup. He won over £16,000 in stake money, a large amount during the War. In his one trip to Australia he was allocated a prohibitive weight, and came third in the Warwick Stakes to High Caste and Freckles, two great Australian champions. After the race he was unsettled, and rather than risk damage, he was returned to New Zealand.

Three times he was assessed as top weight in the Melbourne Cup, a race in which he would never partake, sometimes at a greater handicap than the mighty Phar Lap.As a three year-old, Kindergarten won ten of 13 races, with those ten coming in a row after starting the season with three minor placings. Among his victories as a three year-old were the Great Northern Derby, Wellington Cup and the first of his two victories in the Easter Handicap, in which he carried 9 st 11 lb, the highest weight ever carried to victory in the race by a three year-old.His Auckland Cup victory in 1943 is regarded as his greatest performance. He carried 10st 2lb in a high-quality field and beat them by five lengths in a then track record time of 3 minutes 22 seconds.Overall he raced 35 times for 25 wins and 6 placings and is regarded by many who saw him race as possibly the greatest horse to have ever raced in New Zealand.

Musket (1867-1885) was an English-bred thoroughbred racehorse. He was sired by Toxophilite and out of West Australian Mare, a daughter of the 1853 British Triple Crown champion, West Australian.Although Musket won a number of significant races in England, he is best remembered for siring many of the important New Zealand-bred horses during the nineteenth century, including the famous Carbine. Carbine in his day was considered one of the greatest horses in the world, whose feats included winning the 1890 Melbourne Cup with a very large weight. The bloodlines of Musket including Carbine, and Carbine's half brother Trenton, are still evident in horse racing today.

All horse information from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.