Sunline - Racing Career

Racing Career

In partnership with Thayne Green and Helen Lusty, McKee raced the filly three times for as many wins as a two-year-old.

After a first-up win at three, in August 1998, McKee took Sunline across the Tasman Sea to Australia for the first of an eventual nine visits. Racing in the second, third, and fourth legs of Sydney's Princess Series, for three-year-old fillies, she "powered through the wet" on her Australian debut in the Furious Stakes, won the Tea Rose Stakes on a dry track two weeks later, and won in the Flight Stakes - her first of 13 Group One wins. Sunline was then spelled, rather than continuing on to the feature races in Melbourne, and never competed with the reigning Horse of the Year, Might And Power.

Sunline resumed in February 1999, and had eight wins from as many starts in New Zealand, but was narrowly beaten by Rose O'War, second-up, in Melbourne's Angus Armanasco Stakes. The race was not run to suit, with a long shot racing away before the home turn, which may have exposed Sunline's lack of fitness on the day, as she was jumping from 1,200 to 1,600 metres. At her next start, Sunline defeated Rose O'War in the Kewney Stakes, and in her first look at the Cox Plate course, defeated the VRC Oaks (and subsequent AJC Oaks) winner Grand Archway by four-and-a-half lengths in the Moonee Valley Oaks (2,040 metres).

Sunline then ventured north to Sydney to tackle the Doncaster Handicap (1,600 metres). Despite taking on older horses for the first time, and starting from a wide starting gate, Sunline was sent out one of the shortest-priced favourites in the race's long history, at 10/9 (approximately $2.10). Sunline went straight to the front and never looked back to score by one-and-three-quarter lengths. She became just the fourth filly to win in the modern history of the race.

A fortnight later, Sunline was again a favourite in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2,000 metres), and led the field over the rise (near the top of the straight), then faded to finished second-last of the six runners. She was then sent home to New Zealand for a spell.