From Winter Winners to Group 1 Glory

Kristen Manning

Editor

Last updated: Wed 01 Jul 2026 14:47

Kristen Manning 2 hours ago

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Winter races at Sunshine Coast, Flemington, and Belmont have produced future Group 1 champions
Legends such as Winx, Nature Strip, and Northerly took key early wins in these off-season events
Australian racing’s 'off-season' is rich with talent and opportunities for emerging stars

Nature Strip winning the A.R. Creswick Stakes at Flemington in 2018 before going on to become one of Australia's greatest Group 1 sprinters. (Getty)

With the last Group 1 race for the season run last weekend, the Australian racing calendar enters a relatively quiet period as we look ahead to another big spring.

The Sunshine Coast
Flemington
Belmont

That doesn't mean there's a lack of quality racing this Saturday, however, with stakes races on the cards at Flemington, Rosehill, the Sunshine Coast and Belmont.

With good prizemoney on offer throughout the year, there really isn't much of an off-season these days, and there have been some outstanding gallopers emerge from winter racing to go on to bigger and better things.

Let's have a look at a few that have gone right on from wins at these meetings.

The Sunshine Coast

A large mural of the best horse to have raced at the Sunshine Coast greets racegoers making their way to the Caloundra course, the club justifiably proud of the historic winning streak that kicked off there in 2015.

The Group 3 Sunshine Coast Guineas was run in May that year, having been contested in the winter ever since, and it was certainly a great advertisement for the race, won by the mighty Winx; the first in a stunning run of 33 victories.

So important was that race to the Sunshine Coast that it was renamed the Winx Guineas from 2020, and since then another three of its winners have gone on to Group 1 glory.

A year after Winx's success, Tivaci was in the winner's circle, the following year proving himself at the elite level by taking out the Group 1 All-Aged Stakes at his final run before heading to stud.

Two years later, The Bostonian was the star of the day, going on to win three Group 1 races: the Doomben 10,000, the Kingsford-Smith Cup and the Canterbury Stakes.

In 2023, the race famously produced the following year's Melbourne Cup winner, Knight's Choice, who started at double-figure odds in both contests. He was back at the Sunshine Coast in 2024, running fourth behind stablemate Mission Of Love in the Listed Caloundra Cup.

That race, a year later, was won in very easy style by Half Yours, who just a few months later wrote his name into the history books as a Group 1 Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup winner.

The Listed Glasshouse Handicap is another race with some nice horses on its honour roll.

Woorim was successful in the 1400m contest in 2010 and 2011 before a Group 1 Oakleigh Plate success in 2012, while the 2020 winner Krone took out the following year's Group 1 Coolmore Classic. Meanwhile, Scenic Peak won this race and the Group 1 Emirates Stakes in the same year: 2002.

Flemington

Run in winter since 2013, the Listed Gibson Carmichael Stakes, now known as the Taj Rossi Series Final, is a race that has been run since the 1930s. It had a better record of being won by future topliners when run earlier, with those having this race on their resume including Arctic Scent, Apache Cat, Lawrence, Sir Blink and Tobin Bronze.

The Listed A.R. Creswick Stakes, on the other hand, first run in 1979 as the Gallantic Handicap (renamed in 1998), has always been a winter feature.

Its 1984 winner, King Phoenix, was the first to go on to big-race success, later that year taking out the Group 1 Marlboro Cup (now the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes) and the following year's Group 1 Elders Mile (now the Toorak Handicap).

In 2018 and 2019, the race hit a hot streak, won by two high-class chestnuts: Nature Strip and Gytrash. The latter won the Group 1 Lightning Stakes the following year, and it was the first stakes success for the nine-time Group 1 winner Nature Strip.

Run since 1980, the Listed Winter Championship has only one subsequent Group 1 horse among its winners, with the 2022 winner Tuvalu later that year claiming success in the Toorak Handicap.

The 1985 winner Kiwi Slave, who went on to another two Listed wins in Adelaide, had been competitive at the highest level, two years previously splitting Strawberry Road and McGinty in the W.S. Cox Plate.

Belmont

The Listed Aquanita Stakes is one of the features of Saturday's Perth card, but it is a race that has been run at different times of the year. Since 2017 it has been positioned in the winter; before that, it was run in December.

When won by the champion Northerly, his first stakes win at just his second start, it was held in April. Meanwhile, the triple Group 1 winner Scenic Shot won the race in February.

Other winners include subsequent Group 1 WA Derby winners The Bukhra and Shirazamatazz, the Group 1 Metropolitan Handicap winner Come Play With Me, and the dual Group 1-winning stallion Playing God, whose full brother God Has Spoken won the same race 12 months earlier.