Cover image courtesy of Sportpix
It’s been a long time since any horse won the Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double, a pairing that has, for over a century, lined the dreams of the devout racegoer.
Since 1879, which was the year of the first Caulfield Cup, only 11 horses have managed the double, and the list is exclusive. It includes Poseidon in 1906, Rising Fast (NZ) (Alonzo {GB}) in 1955, and Let’s Elope (NZ) (Nassipour {USA}) in 1991, among others.
Whipping in the list is the self-important mare Ethereal, who won the Cups double in 2001. She was a remarkable thing, trained by then New Zealand resident Sheila Laxon to over $4 million in prizemoney and a stakes haul that included the G1 The BMW, G1 Queensland Oaks and the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups, all in 2001.
Laxon recalls easily “the elite little thing that she was. She was terribly important to herself and she did what she wanted to do. You just tagged along in an attempt to get what you wanted out of her.”
Ethereal ran into such horses as Northerly (Serheed {USA}), Sky Heights (NZ) (Zabeel {NZ}) and Sunline (NZ) (Desert Sun {GB}) during her career. In the Melbourne Cup, she got home on wits alone, but her victory was critical to history because Laxon became the first woman to train a Melbourne Cup winner. To this day, Gai Waterhouse is the only other.
Scott Seamer and Sheila Laxon after Ethereal (NZ), ridden by Seamer and trained by Laxon, won the Melbourne Cup in 2001 | Image courtesy of Sportpix
Laxon was hanging on the fence the day Ethereal was named, and it was her suggestion that the Rhythm (USA) filly be given that name. She still credits the horse with “the most incredible of brains”.
“It was as her name suggested,” the trainer said, “that she was sent from the heavens.”
Ethereal is 26 years old today, whiling away her time in retirement at Pencarrow Stud, where she was bred and born and to whom she has belonged all her life.
“It was as her (Ethereal) name suggested, that she was sent from the heavens.” - Sheila Laxon
She was born at Pencarrow in 1997 from a family that the farm had long invested in. Her second dam, Richebourg (NZ), was a daughter of Vice Regal (NZ) who had won the 1984 G3 Tranquil Star S., and this was the start of the family at Pencarrow.
Rhythm, a son of Mr Prospector (USA), had been standing up the country at Cambridge Stud, and his union with Richebourg’s daughter, the outstanding four-time Group winner Romanee Conti (NZ) (Sir Tristram {Ire}), resulted in Ethereal on November 16, 1997.
Horses like this mare are rare today. It seems like they are getting on or passing on, like the Triple Crown-winning Burst (Marauding {NZ}), who died in June last year at the age of 31. At Pencarrow Stud, Ethereal is pushing a similar vintage. So too Makybe Diva (GB) (Desert King {GB}), who is 25.
Ethereal (NZ) at Pencarrow Stud in 2019 | Image courtesy of Pencarrow Stud
The Ethereal S. has been ongoing at Caulfield since 2010 and is a Group race for 3-year-old fillies. Fittingly, its most famous of winners has been Verry Elleegant (NZ) (Zed {NZ}), who can only hope for a life as long and as lovely as the determined little thing that is Ethereal.
