There have been many memorable Melbourne Cup successes for New Zealand horses but none as unlikely – or unforgettable – as the 1983 race. Michael Burgess looks back at an impossible victory.
For legendary jockey Jimmy Cassidy, the moment is frozen in time.
Four decades on, he can still relive it “just like yesterday”. He remembers the days leading up to the race, the build-up, the mounting yard and sitting in the barrier draw, anxiously waiting to go. Hell, he even recalls the first time he saw the horse a few years earlier, in a maiden race at Stratford, then driving back to tell his boss he had “found a good ’un’”.
But most of all, Cassidy remembers the last 600m, when his mount decided to go, before producing one of the most remarkable sequences in New Zealand sporting history.
“I haven’t seen a horse put up a performance like that in any race,” Cassidy tells the Herald. “Not in a Sydney Cup, a Brisbane Cup, an Adelaide Cup, let alone a Melbourne Cup. They don’t do it today. They buy these international horses, race close to the speed. I’ve seen some magnificent horses over the years but I don’t think you’ll see anything better than what we saw 40 years ago. He would have beaten them all.”
Cassidy, of course, is talking about Kiwi, the farm-trained chestnut gelding that took out the 1983 Melbourne Cup. There have been plenty of popular thoroughbreds in this country over the years – some that transcended the sport – but arguably none that could match Kiwi’s enduring legacy.
His impossible finishing burst, from 25 lengths behind the leaders to win going away, had never been seen before at Flemington and will surely never be seen again.
“In any race, it’s an amazing feeling to come to the outside and be able to run past horses but to do it in such an esteemed race, on a horse called Kiwi, being a Kiwi, at 20 years of age … it was quite amazing,” says Cassidy.
Kiwi was famously purchased for $1000 by Waverley sheep farmer Ewen ‘Snow’ Lupton and his wife Anne, who were popular racing identities in the tight-knit Taranaki community.
Cassidy first saw Kiwi race in 1980 before he got a ride the following year.
”He flew home from last and got beaten by a nose,” said Cassidy. “I knew how good he could be.”
So did plenty of others, as Cassidy found out before the 1981 Waverley Cup.
“I called into the Waverley Hotel, to have a piss before the races because I’d driven from Hastings,” explains Cassidy. “There were signs up ‘Congratulations Kiwi’. It was 10.30 in the morning and the Cup wasn’t run until 3 o’clock. They already had the signs up, that’s how confident the hometown were that he would win.”
It was Kiwi’s first appearance in an open handicap race against more experienced horses.
”Horses don’t win open company races in New Zealand as a class three horse,” says Cassidy. “And he didn’t just win; he bloody s... in and won by four lengths. That’s a demolition.”
After building a reputation, his status was confirmed with a spectacular victory in the 1983 Wellington Cup, where he picked his way through the middle of the field, after being last at the home turn.
”I had to navigate a passage and because he was such a long strider, you couldn’t get stopped on him,” says Cassidy.
“So you had to pick the right way.”
10 months later, Cassidy, Lupton and Kiwi were at Flemington for the 132nd Melbourne Cup. Lupton had confounded pundits by choosing not to race in Australia ahead of the big day, something unheard of back then, instead opting for a relaxed build-up. He was also calm with his advice.
”I said to Snowy, ‘what’s the plan?’ He said, ‘nothing different, he’ll go when he’s ready, you know him, Jimmy’,” says Cassidy.
The jockey also noted Kiwi’s calm demeanour amid the chaos of the mounting yard, minutes before the race.
”His biggest asset was his attitude … every horse was sweating up, jig-jogging, but not Kiwi. He walked around with his head down, not a sweat mark on him, the ultimate professional. If you let his head go, he would have put it down and eaten grass … that’s how relaxed he was.”
Drawn in barrier two, Kiwi settled into the rear of the field.
”He just wanted to hack out the back,” says Cassidy.
With 1000m to go, Kiwi was still last, seemingly destined to be an afterthought. Just before the 700m mark, with 22 horses in front of him, Cassidy began to prepare his horse for a charge.
”I started to work on him, to get him concentrating. Just got to work him into it, and then when he’s ready, he will chase.”
Even watching now, it’s hard to comprehend what happens next, as he emerges steadily through the pack.
”I knew Kiwi, I just had to be patient and give him a clear passage,” says Cassidy.
The key moment comes just before the 250m mark. Still trailing 11 horses, Cassidy somehow takes him across the back of three horses at full pace to find the outside lane.
”I started to angle out, never stopped his momentum and there he was. People thought he had just come out of the car park. When you changed stride on him, his acceleration was unbelievable. It was devastating.”
Kiwi came from nowhere – catching everybody, including the commentators, by surprise – to sweep past the leading pack.
”Noble Comment and Mr Jazz settle down to fight it out,” said Australian caller Peter Donegan, before his tone quickly changed. “And flying home is Kiwi. What a run! One of the biggest performances you could ever see in the Melbourne Cup.“
Another caller, Clem Dimsey, had a similar take: ”And Kiwi’s flying … might beat them all. Kiwi’s come from last in a phenomenal performance”
Back in New Zealand, seemingly half the country was celebrating a successful punt, given the popularity of the 6-year-old, who closed at 10/1.
”I thought he was a certainty, especially at the weight [52kg],” recalls Auckland customs broker Max Burgess, who watched the race at the Birdcage Tavern in downtown Auckland. “So much so that I rang my mother in Australia and told her to back it. I spoke to her the next day, and she said, ‘I was cursing your name as they came into the straight and it was running last’. I said, ‘you weren’t the only one, Mum’.
”I’d talked a few mates into backing it and they were all saying, ‘oh, this horse is bloody useless’. I said ‘hang on, just wait till he winds him up’. But I didn’t expect him to be that far back. I’ve never seen a finish like it, to make up so much ground.”
Back at Flemington, Cassidy’s mind was spinning. He was feted at the after-party before a live nationwide television appearance on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
”I think I drank half a bottle of champagne in the limo on the way”.
The parties went on for days in Waverley – Lupton’s son Warwick broke his leg falling down the stairs outside the local hotel – while Lupton and Kiwi arrived to a heroes’ welcome. The underdog success also lifted the mood of the nation, with soaring inflation and unemployment in the final stages of the Muldoon government.
For Lupton’s granddaughter Jaimee-Lee, now a successful horse trainer herself, the first Tuesday in November always brings back memories.
“Every year, people start talking about it again,” laughs Jaimee-Lee. “Everyone always finds it so amazing, because Kiwi was just worked on the farm and wasn’t part of those big stables. It’s so hard to get a horse to that race, let alone win it.”
As a child, she remembers all the “photos and things” in their lounge, while Kiwi’s “lovely” headstone was in their back garden.
”From time to time, they would get the Cup out - people would want to see it,” recalls Jaimee-Lee. “But Snowy was a very humble guy. It wasn’t talked about a lot because he was so quiet about it.”
But it will be a topic on Tuesday.
”It is surprising,” says Jaimee-Lee. “A lot of Cups have been run but it does feel like no one has forgotten Kiwi.”
Certainly not Cassidy, who retired from racing in 2015 with a century of Group 1 wins, including two Melbourne Cups.
”You don’t think horses can do that but what you watched was real,” says Cassidy. “I’ve never really seen another horse that could compare with Kiwi.
”He was a light-framed horse, never carried a lot of condition because of the way he was worked around the property. Snowy deserves a lot of credit, to prepare the horse that well, he made him like that.
“Apart from being a champion horse, he was a champion friend of an owner that loved him dearly. Kiwi ticked all the boxes: he had the nature, he had the attitude, he had the presence and he had that finish.”
Michael Burgess has been a sports journalist since 2005, winning several national awards and covering Olympics, Fifa World Cups and America’s Cup campaigns.
The Resources Minister came to the select committee sporting a Make NZ Great Again hat.