On Track Magazine Spring 2021

19 In the 1981 Cox Plate, Kingston Town drew barrier 1, a less than ideal marble for a horse who needed room, and it looked the horror show it promised to be for a large portion of the race. He was pocketed on the fence with horses all around him but shouldered his way clear to win softly. That victory made Kingston Town the first ever to reach the $1 million prizemoney mark, but he wasn’t done there. Often Kingstown Town looked under immense pressure in his races, as if he wasn’t travelling well with only 400 metres to go, but almost every time he responded, picked up the bit and won like a champion. This was none more evident than in his third Cox Plate success in 1982. Nearing the turn, Kingston Town looked to be struggling. He was seemingly going backwards while the rest of the pack were propelling themselves forward. “Kingston Town can’t win,” Bill Collins famously said up in the caller’s box as the son of Bletchingly looked defeated. No one watching could’ve argued that a victory at least seemed very unlikely from the position he was in. But almost as if he had heard Collins, The King got to the outside lane, springboarded himself off the canvas, and won in breathtaking fashion. If he wasn’t already considered as one of racing’s most elite horses ever, that third Cox Plate all but confirmed it. For breeder David Hains it had come as a surprise that he could breed such a magnificent beast. He said the Bletchingly foals had been notoriously ordinary when they were young, and the King was sent to the 1978 Wright Stephenson yearling sale – lot 4 with a reserve of just $8,000. But as they say, the rest is history. Just four years later, Kingston Town had won 14 Group 1 races, 3 Cox Plates, and the Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year. He had proved himself as not only a champion but a legend. All hail the King – and the man who one day decided he was going to breed him.