Australia's Winx wins record 17 Group 1 flat races

Mar 27, 2018 06:00 am

Australian champion mare Winx won the George Ryder Stakes for the third successive year to register her 24th-straight victory and become the most successful flat racer in Group 1 races.

Ridden by top Australian jockey Hugh Bowman, Winx broke clear of the field with 150m of the 1,500m remaining in the A$1 million (S$1.01 million) race at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse in western Sydney on Saturday and romped to her 17th Group 1 triumph.

That put her ahead of American thoroughbred John Henry, who won 16 Group 1 races in the 1980s.

Winx is just five short of Irish hurdler Hurricane Fly, the now-retired gelding, who won 22 Group 1 races earlier this century.

Winx's 24th consecutive victory also puts her one behind Black Caviar in the Australian record books, the Peter Moody-trained popular champion mare having won 25 successive races, including 15 in Group 1, from 2008 until her retirement in 2013. - REUTERS