Champion mare Winx has joined an elite band of racehorses to be inducted into the Australian Racing Hall Of Fame.
The Chris Waller-trained mare, unbeaten at her last 17 race starts, was one of 11 inductees from the ranks of horses, jockeys, trainers and associates announced on Wednesday.
Winx joins champion mares Sunline and Black Caviar as the only other horses to be inducted while still racing.
Chairman of the Australian Hall Of Fame Greg Carpenter said Winx was a deserving inductee.
“Winx has captured the imagination of racing fans across the globe and is undisputedly the best mare in the world,” Carpenter said.
Winx was one of four racehorses in the 2017 induction.
The others are Archer, who won the first two Melbourne Cups, along with two of Hall Of Fame Legend Bart Cummings’ Melbourne Cup winners Light Fingers and Saintly.
Champion Perth jockey John Miller and cross-country jockey Tommy Corrigan were the jockeys inducted.
Miller rode in excess of 2200 winners in a career spanning more than 40 years that saw him win many of Australia’s greatest races.
He had a a great association with Bart Cummings and Colin Hayes and in the 1966-67 season won the Caulfield, Melbourne and Sydney Cups on Galilee.
Corrigan was a champion jockey of the 1880’s on the flat and over jumps, and won seven Grand Nationals.
When he died after a race fall in 1894, a cortege of 250 vehicles attended his funeral.
Victorian trainers Brian Courtney and Des Judd also joined the esteemed list.
Courtney had a string of top-line gallopers including Dhaulagiri, New Statesman, Coppelius and Better Lad and won two Victoria Derbies, the Cox Plate and Caulfield Guineas, while also winning three Victorian trainers’ premierships in the 1960’s.
Judd also won the Victorian trainers’ premiership on three occasions and during the 1950’s and 60’s won a host of feature races including the Victoria Derby and Oaks, Newmarket Handicap and Oakleigh Plate, while also being a trainer of jumpers including Crisp.
Rounding out the inductees for 2017 are former Victorian chairman of stewards Edward Spencer ‘Alan’ Bell, Perth’s Lee-Steere family who have been prominent administrators and five-time Melbourne Cup-winning owner Lloyd Williams.
