Better Loosen Up has been rated as one of Australia's top thoroughbreds over the past 25 years. He is the only Australian thoroughbred ever to win the Japan Cup (in 1990). This win followed a win in the Cox Plate when Better Loosen Up equalled the course record time. He also won the Australia Cup in 1991, defeating the gallant Vo Rogue, trying for three wins in a row.

Better Loosen Up was the star guest at the 2004 Australian Racing Hall of Fame Awards where he was inducted to join immortals like Phar Lap and Octagonal.

Bomber Bill typifies what Living Legends is all about. Here is the original warrior!

Bomber Bill bowed out of racing at the top level at Caulfield on March 3rd 2007 after the JRA Stakes. It was his 98th start and the end of a magnificent racing career that saw him race in 5 Australian states, as well as compete in the Hong Kong International Sprint in 2003. Bomber filled the top 3 placings 34 times with 24 outright wins.

3 times a Group 1 winner and amassing $1.892 million in prizemoney, the evergreen Bomber Bill gave his owner and fans the ride of their life in a career that stretched from a 2-year-old win in West Australia in December of 1997 to his last group win at Sandown in January of 2006.

A perennial favourite with the race crowds, Bomber Bill left the racecourse as one of Australia's most loved racehorses and a worthy resident of Living legends.

Brew is by the great Sir Tristram from Horlicks, the champion New Zealand race mare who ran a world record for 2400 metres when she won the Group 1 Japan Cup in 1989. This makes Brew the best bred horse to win a Melbourne Cup since the 2nd World War. From humble beginnings to Melbourne Cup hero, Brew ran unplaced in a Te Rapa maiden in New Zealand in March 1997. He won only one race in over 2 years and that was a Kembla Grange maiden in August 1997.

It was the patience of trainer Mike Moroney and the late developing of the horse that made the year 2000 Brew's year. He won the listed JPN Trophy at Flemington in early October 2000, was just beaten in the Moonee Valley Cup won the Saab Quality on Derby day at Flemington, and then dropped 7.5 kilos into the 2000 Melbourne Cup with Kerrin McEvoy. The horse travelled kindly all the way and had the cup won inside the 400 metre mark. Brew had five further runs and failed to regain his Spring 2000 form and was retired.

Doriemus, winner of the Caulfield and Melbourne Cup double in 1995, ranks as one of Australia's best stayers of recent years, and was an enormously popular horse.

Fairytales don't generally come true in horse racing. Fields Of Omagh (Foo) completed a fairy tale ending to his stellar career at Moonee Valley in winning the Cox Plate on October 28th 2006. Foo was the oldest runner at 9 years and was running in the great race for the 5th successive year. Previously, only Tranquil Star had achieved such a feat in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

All Victorian bred and passed in at the Melbourne Premier sale for $45,000, Foo raced for 7 straight seasons. The gelding has been a great testimony to the training grounds of Lindsay Park at Angaston in South Australia.

Fields of Omagh travelled the world to Japan, Dubai and Hong Kong to compete at the highest level. He suffered 2 suspensory injuries to both front legs, yet was able to come back better through the great management of the Lindsay Park team. The bravest of horses, he came through the wonderful era of Makybe Diva, Northerly, Sunline and Lonhro.

The highest stake earner to be sold in Victoria he sits at 4th on the all time stake earners at close to $6.5 million.

Foo's retirement was announced on Cox Plate eve and he came out to produce a last to first best ever performance that took the son of Rubiton to legendary Status.

Might and Power was rated the world's best stayer in 1997 when he won the Caulfield Cup/Melbourne Cup double. A free, front running style of racing made Might and Power an exciting racehorse and endeared him to racing fans across the nation. He led all the way in his 1997 Cup victories and again in 1998 when taking out the Cox Plate. Might and Power won 15 of his 33 race starts and $5,226,286 in prize money before being retired in 1999.

Paris Lane (stable nickname Percy), as with many great Australian racehorses, was born and broken in at Lindsay Park Stud. His first race start was in a 2-year-old handicap at Moe on the 18th of July 1993. He won his next start, a race for maidens, over 1200 metres at Yarra Valley on October 28th 1993. In May of 1994 he won the Queensland Guineas at Eagle farm before finishing second in each of the Hollindale Stakes, Doomben Cup and the Queensland Derby.

Back in Melbourne for the 1994 Spring Racing Carnival Paris Lane won the Caulfield Cup and The Mackinnon Stakes before finishing second in The Melbourne Cup. He had his last start in the 1996 Australian Cup and finished his career with earnings of over $1.7 million, with 7 wins and 14 placings from 28 starts. In his retirement “Percy” also acts as Uncle to the Mackinnon polo ponies in large paddock on Mt Emu Creek at Langi Willi.

Melissa Jackson, his strapper, remembers Percy as having tremendous character. He was renowned for a pig root in the parade ring which would see his hind legs so far off the ground that they would be above his head!

Regal Roller comes to Living Legends with a wonderful record on the racetrack. A homebred by the Canadian stallion Regal Classic from Arantxa Rose, the chestnut was bred and raced by the Durran family.

Regal Roller started out at three in a maiden at Benalla in March 2002 and it took until his 6th run to win his maiden at Bendigo in August the same year.

Regal Roller will best be remembered for his explosive front running speed around the Caulfield track and it was here that his magnificent sequence began on Caulfield Guineas Day in 2003 where he won by 4.5 lengths over 1400 metres. The horse went on to race at Caulfield on 21 occasions and chalked up 9 wins and 3 placings including 3 at Group 1 level and overall 6 group races. He ran his final race in the C.F. Orr stakes in 2006 and was retired immediately after.

A horse with big heart who would break others with sheer speed and tenacity, Regal Roller was a great crowd favourite and finished his career with 12 wins and $1.489 million in prizemoney.

Rogan Josh, a gelding who hails from Western Australia, went from obscurity to national prominence in the spring of 1999, culminating in a victory in Australia's greatest race, the Melbourne Cup.

After a narrow loss in the 1998 Perth Cup, Rogan Josh - owned by Wendy Green - was transferred to the Cups' King, Bart Cummings, and set on the Cups' trail. He ran a bold 4th to Sky Heights in the Caulfield Cup, after a tough run in which he was at least 8 horses wide leaving the straight the first time before pushing up to the lead, which he surrendered only halfway down the straight.

 

He appeared next in the Group 1 WFA MacKinnon Stakes, and surprised with a strong victory. He was then elevated to second favourite for the Melbourne Cup, and with 50kg, proved to strong for Godolphin's Central Park to give Bart an historic 11th Melbourne Cup victory. Owner, Wendy Green, captured a "special spirit" of racing. After winning the cup Wendy drove home to Darwin with the cup in the boot and showed it to all of her friends along the way.

Saintly, "The Horse from Heaven", was retired on Sunday 19 July 1998. He will be remembered for winning the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup in the one year, his brilliant acceleration and long stride, and his great duels with his 3yo rival Octagonal. Saintly's 4 Group 1 wins included the Australian Cup, Cox Plate, Melbourne Cup and CF Orr Stakes. He travelled to Japan for the Japan Cup, but the 24 hour trip resulted in severe travel sickness and he was withdrawn on the eve of the race. He was bred, trained and owned by Bart Cummings, who sold a part share to his good friend Dato Chin Nan. He was ridden by Darren Beadman in all his Group 1 wins, and throughout his 4yo career. Larry Cassidy and Patrick Payne rode him during some of his 3yo races.

Silent Witness arrived in Hong Kong from Australia in 2002 and won his first race comfortably by almost four lengths in a 1000 metre Class 4 race straight down the track. He rounded off his first season with easy victories in all five starts to rise to the top class and emerge as a new star sprinter in Hong Kong.

Since then, Silent Witness has become the legend of Hong Kong racing, drawing thunderous cheers and cries from the crowd every time he appeared on the track. Trained by Tony Cruz, Silent Witness raced 29 times, with 18 wins and a total of over $9,000,000 AUD in prize money. Silent Witness was crowned Horse of the Year twice, in 2003/2004 and 2004/2005, and was named to Time Magazine's Top 100 in 2005. Also in 2005, he was announced the world's top sprinter on turf.

On April 24 2005, Silent Witness won his 17th consecutive race, the Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup. Tackling 1400 metres for the first time, Silent Witness broke the record of 16 consecutive wins established by the American champion Cigar. He retired in February 2007 and will enjoy his well-earned rest at Living Legends. Says owner Archie Da Silva, "he deserves nothing less".

Purchased for only $34,000 by Colin Alderson from astute NZ horseman Alan Jones, Sky Heights had the pedigree to go to Group One level. Sky Heights is by Zabeel from Moet Heights, which traces to the famous Heights family of Battle Heights and Mapperley Heights. Unraced at two, and runner-up in the VRC Derby at his 5th start at three, Sky Heights came into his own at the Autumn Carnival in Sydney winning the Rosehill Guineas and AJC Australian Derby in brilliant style.

As a 4 year old he had a great Spring in Melbourne, taking the Craiglee, the Turnbull Stakes, and then capping with the bravest of wins in the Caulfield Cup of 1999. He continued on through the next two seasons winning the Yalumba Stakes, AJC St Leger, and the Sandown Classic in 2001. He was nosed out of the 2001 Caulfield Cup by Ethereal.

Sky Heights is tall, leggy and athletic, with an angular look about him, a dark rich brown coat with no white, and great walker with an alert eye. He is a slightly headstrong horse who blossomed at 3 years and is renowned for being very strong.