Season 2002-2003
Originally trained by David Hall, Makybe Diva made her racetrack debut in late-July 2002, as a three-year-old, in a maiden at Benalla, Victoria, and finished fourth. At her next start, two weeks later - and now classed as a four-year-old - Makybe Diva began a six-race winning sequence in a maiden at Wangaratta, which culminated in stakes wins, three months later, in the Werribee Cup (2,000 m) and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2,500 m). The last win was significant in that it qualified the mare for the following year's Melbourne Cup, and allowed her trainer to give her a light autumn campaign, which consisted of just two starts in relatively short races.
Makybe Diva's early career was unusual in that she was unable to contest any major races against horses of her own age, such as the Oaks, because she was foaled in the U.K. to the northern hemisphere breeding calendar. This meant that, for Australian racing purposes, where horses "age-up" on 1 August each year, she was bracketed with horses who were foaled approximately six months earlier, in the southern hemisphere spring.
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