Who are the greatest Australian racehorses of all time? From Phar Lap, Winx and Black Caviar to Kingston Town, Tulloch and Makybe Diva, The Sporting Base ranks the top 10 horses in Australian racing history, ahead of the 2026 Cox Plate at Flemington.
The Cox Plate, Australasia’s weight-for-age championship, will be run at Flemington on Saturday 24 October while Moonee Valley is redeveloped. It is the first time the race has been staged away from The Valley, after Racing Victoria awarded hosting rights to Flemington. Ceolwulf, Aeliana, Sir Delius and Caulfield Guineas winner Warwoven are among the horses in the likely field for the $6 million Group 1 over 2040m. Races like this one always bring back the same question: which horse is the greatest Australia has ever seen?
For form on this year’s Cox Plate runners and every other meeting, open TSB’s free Racing Form Guide or visit our racing hub.
How we ranked them
This list is TSB’s opinion. We weighed big-race wins, how dominant each horse was against the best of its era, winning streaks, weight carried, longevity and lasting place in the sport, including membership of the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. Five horses hold the Hall of Fame’s highest Legend status: Carbine, Phar Lap, Makybe Diva, Winx and Black Caviar. Career figures come from the Australian Racing Museum, the National Museum of Australia, Racing Victoria, the VRC and other official or reputable records.
Several of these champions were foaled in New Zealand or Britain, but every one of them built its legend in Australian racing, so they all qualify. Comparing a horse from the 1890s with a modern Group 1 star is never exact, so this is a judgement call rather than a formula.
Read more: Racing: The 10 Greatest Cox Plate Winners of All Time
10. Peter Pan
Trainer: Frank McGrath
Biggest wins: Melbourne Cup (1932, 1934), AJC Derby (1932)
Nicknamed the “Blonde Bombshell” for his flaxen mane and chestnut coat, Peter Pan became only the second horse after Archer to win two Melbourne Cups, the VRC notes. His first Cup in 1932 came in just his seventh start, after he had beaten former Cup winner Nightmarch in the Hill Stakes and won the AJC Derby and Melbourne Stakes.
His second was even better. In 1934, as a five-year-old carrying top weight of 61.7kg on a rain-soaked track, he started at 14/1 and won by three lengths under 21-year-old Darby Munro. It is still remembered as one of the great performances in Australian turf history, and it earns Peter Pan a place in our top 10.
9. Sunline
Trainers: Trevor and Stephen McKee
Jockey: Greg Childs
Career record: 48 starts, 32 wins (13 at Group 1 level)
Biggest wins: Cox Plate (1999, 2000), Doncaster (twice), Hong Kong Mile
The New Zealand mare raced on 13 tracks in four countries and won almost $14 million, Thoroughbred News recorded. Her Group 1 haul included two Cox Plates, two Doncasters, two All Aged Stakes, two Coolmore Classics and the Hong Kong Mile, where she held off Fairy King Prawn.
Her 2000 Cox Plate was her masterpiece. Childs sent her forward from barrier 13 and she won by seven lengths, equalling the race’s record winning margin set by Dulcify in 1979. She was Australian Horse of the Year three times and entered the Hall of Fame in 2002 while she was still racing.
8. Makybe Diva
Trainers: David Hall and Lee Freedman
Jockey: Glen Boss
Career record: 36 starts, 15 wins (seven at Group 1 level)
Biggest wins: Melbourne Cup (2003, 2004, 2005), Cox Plate (2005), Sydney Cup, Australian Cup
No horse has done what Makybe Diva did at Flemington. She won three Melbourne Cups in a row from 2003 to 2005, and Racing Victoria noted she remains the only horse to achieve the three-peat. In between, she added the Sydney Cup, the Australian Cup and the 2005 Cox Plate, and she finished her career with more than $14 million in prizemoney.
Owned by Tony Santic, she bowed out after her third Cup, the perfect ending to one of the great Australian sporting stories. She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2006, later reached Legend status, and died in February 2026 at the age of 27. Racing Victoria chief executive Aaron Morrison described her as “more than a champion racehorse, she was a national icon”.
7. Bernborough
Trainer: Harry Plant (after his sale to Sydney)
Jockey: Athol Mulley (in his 15 straight wins)
Career record: 37 starts, 26 wins
Biggest wins: Newmarket Handicap, Doomben 10,000 and Doomben Cup (all 1946)
Disputes over his ownership meant Bernborough was barred from every racecourse except Toowoomba from the age of two to five. Once he was sold in Sydney and sent to Harry Plant, he reeled off 15 successive top-class wins in 1946, a feat the VRC says no Australian horse repeated until Black Caviar and Winx.
He came from a long way back to win the Newmarket Handicap carrying 63kg, then carried 68.5kg to victory in the Doomben Cup. So many people wanted to see him that 107,000 fans went to the 1946 Caulfield Cup, where 68kg finally beat him and he ran fifth. He broke down in the Mackinnon Stakes two weeks later and went on to stand at stud in Kentucky. He was one of the five inaugural horses inducted into the Hall of Fame.
6. Carbine
Bred: New Zealand
Nickname: Old Jack
Career record: 43 starts, 33 wins
Biggest win: Melbourne Cup (1890)
Carbine’s 1890 Melbourne Cup is one of the greatest weight-carrying performances the race has seen. He carried a record 66kg (10st 5lb), 24kg more than the runner-up, won in record time and beat 38 rivals, Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, records. He won all five of his starts as a two-year-old in New Zealand and 17 of his 18 starts as a four- and five-year-old in 1889 and 1890.
His influence did not end on the track. According to State Library Victoria, more than half of the Melbourne Cup winners since 1914 are descended from Carbine, including Phar Lap and Makybe Diva. He was an inaugural Hall of Fame inductee and is one of its five horse Legends.
5. Tulloch
Trainer: Tommy Smith
Career record: 53 starts, 36 wins
Biggest wins: Caulfield Cup (1957), AJC, Victoria and Queensland Derbies (1957), Cox Plate (1960), Brisbane Cup (1961)
Tommy Smith paid 750 guineas for a small, sway-backed colt in New Zealand, and the owner, E.A. Haley, joked that if he was no good they could use him to round up sheep, the Australian Racing Museum records. Instead Tulloch put together arguably the greatest three-year-old season in Australian history, winning 14 races including the AJC, Victoria and Queensland Derbies, the Rosehill and Caulfield Guineas and the Caulfield Cup.
That Caulfield Cup was won in Australian record time, the National Portrait Gallery notes. A stomach illness then kept him off the track for nearly two years, but he came back to win 15 more races, including the 1960 Cox Plate and the 1961 Brisbane Cup. His only unplaced run in 53 starts came in a Melbourne Cup.
4. Kingston Town
Trainer: Tommy Smith
Main jockey: Malcolm Johnston
Career record: 41 starts, 30 wins
Biggest wins: Cox Plate (1980, 1981, 1982), AJC Derby, Sydney Cup, Queensland Derby (all 1980)
Kingston Town ran last in his first race, was gelded and became the first horse to win $1 million in Australia, the ABC recalled. He was the first horse to win three Cox Plates, taking the race in 1980, 1981 and 1982, and he won 14 Group 1 races in all.
His third Cox Plate gave racing one of its most famous calls. Bill Collins declared “Kingston Town can’t win” on the turn, before the champion swept down the outside under Peter Cook to beat Grosvenor by a neck. Those three Cox Plates were his only wins in Melbourne, but they were enough to make him an inaugural Hall of Fame inductee.
Read more: Opinion: Is Winx The Greatest Racehorse In Australian History?
3. Black Caviar
Trainer: Peter Moody
Jockey: Luke Nolen (in all but three starts)
Career record: 25 starts, 25 wins (15 at Group 1 level)
Biggest wins: Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot (2012), Newmarket Handicap (2011), T.J. Smith Stakes (2013)
Black Caviar never lost. She retired in April 2013 with 25 wins from 25 starts, and her 15 Group 1 wins eclipsed Kingston Town’s Australian record, BBC Sport reported. The highlight was a narrow win in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot in June 2012, where she tore a muscle but still got the job done.
She came back from eight months off to win three more races, finishing with the T.J. Smith Stakes at Randwick. “Black Caviars don’t come along every day,” Moody said when she retired. She died in August 2024, a day before her 18th birthday, the ABC reported, and was elevated to Hall of Fame Legend status in 2025.
2. Winx
Trainer: Chris Waller
Jockey: Hugh Bowman
Career record: 43 starts, 37 wins (25 at Group 1 level)
Biggest wins: Cox Plate (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2017, 2018, 2019), Doncaster Mile (2016)
Winx won her last 33 races, a streak that stretched from May 2015 to her farewell in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick on 13 April 2019. Her 25 Group 1 wins are a Guinness world record, and she became the first horse to win four Cox Plates.
According to Racing Australia, she also won four George Ryder Stakes and four Chipping Norton Stakes, and her first Group 1 was the 2015 Queensland Oaks. “She captured the imagination of everyone, here and around the world,” Waller said in 2025, when she was named a Hall of Fame Legend. She earned more than $26 million and was Australian Horse of the Year four times.
1. Phar Lap
Trainer: Harry Telford
Main jockey: Jim Pike
Career record: 51 starts, 37 wins
Biggest wins: Melbourne Cup (1930), Cox Plate (1930, 1931), Agua Caliente Handicap (1932)
Bought cheaply as a New Zealand yearling, Phar Lap became a national hero during the Great Depression. In 1930 alone he won 19 races from 21 starts, the National Museum of Australia records, and he won the Melbourne Cup by three lengths carrying 9st 12lb, three days after he was shot at from a passing car. He won the Cox Plate in 1930 and 1931, and his biggest winning margin was 20 lengths in the King’s Plate at Flemington.
He was so dominant that the handicapper gave him 10st 10lb for the 1931 Melbourne Cup, the heaviest weight ever set for the race. Sent to North America, he won the 1932 Agua Caliente Handicap in Mexico, then the world’s richest race, before dying in California 16 days later. His heart is at the National Museum in Canberra, his hide at Melbourne Museum and his skeleton in Wellington. Nearly a century on, no horse has meant more to Australia. Phar Lap is TSB’s No.1.
Honourable mentions
Hall of Fame members Ajax, Gunsynd and Manikato, 1997 Caulfield and Melbourne Cup winner Might And Power, Octagonal, Northerly, Lonhro and Nature Strip all came close.
The 2026 Cox Plate field now gets its chance to add to that history at Flemington. Check the latest form in TSB’s Racing Form Guide, and for more rankings see the greatest Cox Plate winners, the greatest Melbourne Cup winners and the greatest Caulfield Cup winners.
Gamble responsibly.
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