Racing: Kiwi mare Verry Elleegant trumps racing royalty in Caulfield Cup

Verry Elleegant wins the Group 1 Caulfield Cup. Photo / Pat Scala

A Kiwi mare by a one-time hack stallion downed racing royalty in the A$5 million Caulfield Cup in Melbourne today.

In doing so, Verry Elleegant led home a New Zealand one-three finish in one of Australia's greatest races, with Cambridge-trained The Chosen One a brave third.

Verry Elleegant was bred and started her racing career in New Zealand before being sold to Australian interests.

But former trainer Nick Bishara still shares in her ownership as does an Auckland family syndicate which including former All Black and Warrior Mark Carter.

That isn't her only Kiwi connection, though, as Verry Elleegant is trained by master trainer Chris Waller, who these days is based in Sydney but is a parochial Kiwi.

Verry Elleegant held out the late surge of Irish raider Anthony Van Dyck, the former English Derby winner trained by the world's leading trainer Aidan O'Brien, sired by champion Galileo and owned by some of the most powerful men in world racing.

But for all his blue blood, Anthony Van Dyck couldn't claw his way past the sometimes quirky New Zealand mare sired by Zed, a stallion who was of so little commercial value in his early days at stud he spent time serving non-thoroughbred mares to breed riding hacks.

Those days are behind Zed now and Verry Elleegant, who won A$3m for her triumph, will head to the Melbourne Cup on November 3 as one of the favourites for the race that stops two nations.

That is also the likely target for The Chosen One, who co-trainer Andrew Forsman described as awesome in third place at 60-1.

Earlier on racing's Super Saturday, favourite Classique Legend roared home to win the A$15m Everest at Royal Randwick course in Sydney's eastern suburbs, remarkably giving jockey Kerrin McEvoy his third win in the race which has been going for only four years.