By JOSIE CLARKE
Ann Browne was determined to watch the Mercedes Great Northern Steeplechase from her lucky seat.
Politely declining other offers, she made her way to the fifth floor of the Ellerslie grandstand and sat two seats from the end of the back row - the spot that she and husband Ken Browne have made their own for 20 years.
Binoculars set, she sat tense and quiet amid the racket as an astonishing race played out before her eyes.
She remained frozen as her horse, Smart Hunter, charged down the home straight to a photo finish with Sir Avion and everyone around her jumped to their feet.
The finish brought no relief. "Who won?" she said. No one could tell her.
"It could be a dead heat - don't know," offered Ellerslie race commentator Keith Haub. "I've called some Northerns, but nothing like this."
It appeared Smart Hunter might have shaded Sir Avion, but there was a hint of a dead heat when judge Andrew O'Toole gave his preliminary call.
"A desperately close photo, 8 (Smart Hunter) and 11 (Sir Avion)," O'Toole said. "I stress it is very, very close."
The pair shared the lead from the outset and kept in touch throughout the 6.4km race, clearing the 25 fences together and flanking each other three times up the gruelling Ellerslie Hill.
At the end of the $100,000 race, they shared the same time of 8m 21.45s - the first dead heat in the event's 117 years.
With the result announced, an emotional Ann Browne arrived at the winner's box to greet Smart Hunter, the horse she trains in partnership with her husband, who lies paralysed in Middlemore Hospital after breaking his neck in a training accident last month.
"I'm shaking," she said. "I started shaking with about a round to go."
Jockey Michelle Hopkins, whose performance made her the first woman to complete and win Ellerslie's famous jumping double, said the event had fulfilled a childhood dream, even though it was a dead heat.
"It doesn't seem true to be honest. If there was ever a childhood dream, mine came true today."
As a teenager, she cycled from the North Shore to Coatesville every day, pedalling up the Albany hill with a saddle over the handlebars.
"I didn't know a lot, but that's how keen I was.
"But when I got down to the Brownes, everyone always spoke about the Northern."
She thanked Ken Browne, who watched the race from his bed in the critical care unit at Middlemore Hospital.
"This is for you, Mr Browne. I just hope you're happy. You've got a fantastic horse and thanks for everything."
Ann Browne told the crowd that she approved of the gruelling race's result.
"They call it the great race, and it certainly was. I've never seen one like it.
"The result was how it should have been, really, because none of them deserved to lose."
Racing: After 6.4km, 25 fences and a hill - dead heat
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