Revisiting a great mare

In a year when Australia celebrated the 150^th running of the Melbourne Cup, the name Let’s Elope was freely mentioned.

The great mare, one of Bart Cummings’ 12 Cup winners, won in 1991, coming from virtual obscurity to also win the G2 Turnbull Stakes (2000m, Flemington), G1 Caulfield Cup (2400m, Caulfield) and G1 Mackinnon Stakes (2000m, Flemington) in one of the most dominant spring performances by a mare. She was the first female since Rivette (1939) to win the cups double.

Let’s Elope (ch m 1987, Nassipour (USA)-Sharon Jane (NZ), by Battle-Waggon (GB)) big and powerful, eventually went to America where her bleeding problems, first suffered in a race in the 1992 Group 1 Japan Cup, could be addressed pre-race with the anti-bleeding drug Lasix.

Under the care of Ron McAnally, Let’s Elope won an allowance race at her US debut and then finished first in the 1993 Group 1 Beverly D Stakes (1900m, Arlington) in Illinois, only to be relegated to third after causing interference in the race (awarded to Flawlessly) – Let’s Elope had a habit of laying in under pressure, as she did when she won the Melbourne Cup and survived a protest from stablemate Shiva’s Revenge.

Part-owner Dennis Marks retired the mare after she fractured a cannon bone late in 1993. Let’s Elope didn’t produce her first foal until April 1996 following a 1995 mating to champion sire Danzig (USA). The result was a bay filly named Yes I Will.

Let’s Elope had a 1997 colt by Storm Cat (USA), named Over The Moon, a Stakes-placed the winner of two minor races, and she returned to Australia in 1998 in foal to Seeking The Gold (USA), covered to southern hemisphere time, to produce a colt, who went on to become the top-class galloper Ustinov – Group 1 placed at two and the winner of the 2001 Group 2 AAMI Vase (2040m, Moonee Valley). Ustinov, who is a handy sire, is Let’s Elope’s only Stakes winner. Another son, Caught Courting (by Danehill (USA)) also was Stakes-placed, and he is standing at stud in Queensland.

Unfortunately, Let’s Elope proved a poor breeder in Australia, leaving only five more foals between 1999 and 2008, when she was retired from stud duty and she lives her life at Chris and Kathie Bakker’s Lauriston Park, Euroa. Chris Bakker is a former manager of Mark’s Seven Creeks Estate.

The great mare’s last foal, Karata, a filly by Elvstroem born in 2008, is unraced, as is her 3YO Elvstroem son, Outback Joe, a gelding, currently in work with Colin Little.

Yes I Will, after being Stakes-placed racing in France, came to Australia with her mother. She won a maiden at Geelong (1318m) in August 2000 before finishing fifth behind Tickle My in the Group 2 Let’s Elope Stakes (1400m) at Flemington in September, shortly before her retirement.

Yes I Will has produced three moderate winners, but her filly Olympica, (2006, by Galileo (IRE)) has won her past two starts for trainer Patrick Payne, including a Class 1 today over 2200 metres on a heavy track at Bendigo. Before that she plugged home gamely to win a 2000m maiden narrowly on a good surface at Seymour.

Olympica, owned by Seven Creeks Estate Syndicate, might not have the class of her famous granddam, but she looks an improving mare who can stay. It’s just good to see a descendant of Let’s Elope showing some winning talent. Somewhere along the journey, I suspect, the blood will prevail and an ancestor of Let’s Elope will do a lot more than winning restricted races around the bush.

Footnote 1: Yes I Will has a yearling colt by More Than Ready (USA) and on October 29, only a few days before the 150^th Melbourne Cup won by Americain, she produced a filly by Bel Esprit.

Footnote 2: Two races after Olympica won at Bendigo, another horse with a famous Melbourne Cup connection scored an impressive win. Sunset Café (ch g 2006, Bianconi (USA)-Café Del Mar, by Encosta De Lago) boasts as his fifth dam Bart Cummings’ first Melbourne Cup winner, in 1965, his favourite mare, Light Fingers (ch m 1961, Le Filou (FR)-Cuddlesome (NZ), by Red Mars (GB)).

Footnote 3: Patrick Payne, a former champion jockey, has a long association with Dennis Marks and Let’s Elope’s offspring – he rode Ustinov to win the 2001 Group 2 AAMI Vase at Moonee Valley.

Photo: Let’s Elope in retirement at Lauriston Park.