Kiwi

Kiwi (19 October 1977 – 2 February 1995) was a New Zealand Thoroughbred racehorse who won both the Wellington Cup in New Zealand and the Melbourne Cup in Australia in 1983. Kiwi is especially renowned for his last-to-first victory in the Melbourne Cup, and remains the only horse in history to have won both of these cups. Kiwi raced from 1980 to 1987, and died in 2 February 1995 at the age of 17. Background Kiwi was bred by Brian Fischer in Parore, New Zealand. He was bought for NZ$1000 by Waverley sheep farmer Snow Lupton and his wife Anne, with Anne's personal preference for him to have a chestnut hair coat. They had previously owned a Blarney Kiss horse. Though Kiwi showed promise as a racehorse, Lupton believed the horse would perform better as a distance runner. Racing career Kiwi won the Wellington Cup in January 1983 from the rear of the field in a close finish, with a time of 3 minutes 20.29 seconds. Despite winning the Wellington Cup earlier in the year, Kiwi was still considered by numerous bookmakers as an outsider for the Melbourne Cup and started with odds of 10/1. Similar to the previous race, Kiwi's jockey Jim Cassidy began the race by settling the horse at the very back of the 24-horse field. At the turn of the Flemington track, with 500 metres remaining, Kiwi was positioned as the second last horse. The last horse was Amarant, which had been injured and was running lame.