There is just something special about Moonee Valley and remarkable winning streaks in its biggest races. You immediately think about the champion mare Winx and that historic swathe she cut through the Ladbrokes Cox Plate with four successive wins from 2015 to 2018. Winx is the most recent and the most amazing – but her Cox Plate streak is just one of many incredible such chapters in the history of Moonee Valley. Before the Winx chapter came what was quite possibly the most memorable few years Moonee Valley ever witnessed. Through the early 1980s, Kingston Town and Manikato ruled the Colosseum-like racetrack in Moonee Ponds. Sure, what Winx did was mind-blowing, and that Bonecrusher/Our Waverly Star Cox Plate is folklore. However, those years in the late seventies and early eighties watching Kingston Town and Manikato come back time-after-time and stamping their greatness at The Valley was something else. They were the yin and yang, which provided so many memorable moments. Kingston Town the great middle-distance and staying horse. Manikato the incredible sprinter who could stretch out and win over a middle distance. For all of his magical and memorable race calls, the late Bill Collins – nicknamed “The Accurate One” – will be remembered for getting one wrong. He wrote off Kingston Town rounding the home turn in his third Cox Plate win in 1982. Collins said, almost casually “Kingston Town can’t win!” But he did win… and emphatically. That day even spawned a documentary, “The King and Man”, capturing the magic of By Adam Hamilton THE WILLIAM REID STAKES A MAGNET FOR Greatmess The formidable Valley specialist Manikato won the William Reid Stakes five years in a row from 1979 to 1983.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODA1NTI=