Australians who were up in the early hours of Sunday morning to watch the Kentucky Derby coverage from Churchill Downs would have been horrified to see Think Big win the G2 TwinSpires Turf Sprint.
It would be the equivalent of seeing an Australian sprinter named Secretariat winning The Everest – sacrilegious.
Think Big was one of only five horses who won more than one Melbourne Cup, taking the prize in 1974 and 1975 for trainer Bart Cummings. He may have been a far inferior horse to the mighty Secretariat but he holds a special place in Australian history.
Since that dual victory, though, the American sprinter is the 15th Think Big to be registered anywhere in the world. That includes two Australian-bred horses: one a two-time Class 5 winner in Hong Kong for Dennis Yip, the other racing in Beijing. There were also four bred in the United States, three in India and Ireland, two in South Africa and one in Argentina.
That night, Australian time, Flight ran second in the G1 1000 Guineas from Newmarket. Flight was one of the great race mares in Australian history, a Hall of Fame racehorse who is honoured by the G1 Flight Stakes at Randwick each year. Two Cox Plate wins were the highlight of a stellar career from 1942 to 1947.
It again raises the issue of globally protected race names, a topic covered by Idol Horse’s David Morgan two years ago when a British horse named Beauty Generation stepped out in a Kempton maiden. That Beauty Generation has since gone on to win two of his 16 starts but has not come close to matching the feats of his namesake, the Hong Kong champion.
The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities publishes a list each year of protected racehorse names. As of the end of 2024, that list numbers 3,263.
A large list was compiled in 1995 that featured almost 5,000 names. However, Australia and New Zealand – among others – were not original signatories. Instead, the list was compiled largely of European and American classic winners and those who had made a breeding impact in the northern hemisphere.
This changed in 1996. Since then, there have been 11 races in which winners’ names have earned automatic protection: the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, the Irish Champion Stakes, the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Breeders’ Cup Turf, the Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini, the Grande Premio Brasil, the Japan Cup, the Hong Kong Cup (since 2005), the Dubai World Cup (also since 2005) and, yes, the Melbourne Cup.
While that means that every Cup winner since Saintly is protected, only eight winners’ names up to 1995 are globally restricted: Glencoe, Sheet Anchor, Carbine, Phar Lap, Peter Pan, Rain Lover, At Talaq and Vintage Crop. And for three of them – Glencoe, Sheet Anchor and Peter Pan – it is not because of the Melbourne Cup winner but their namesake abroad.
It may surprise Americans to learn that not all Kentucky Derby winners are globally protected, although most up to 1995 are not available. Since Thunder Gulch in 1995, only seven of the 30 subsequent winners up to Sovereignty have been restricted: Silver Charm, Barbaro, Animal Kingdom, California Chrome, American Pharoah, Justify and Authentic.
For instance, since Charismatic won the 1999 Kentucky Derby, he has had a remarkable nine namesakes abroad: two in India and one each in South Africa, Great Britain, the Philippines, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Cyprus and Australia.
In Hong Kong, horses like Akeed Mofeed, Time Warp and Glorious Forever are protected as Hong Kong Cup winners while Horses of the Year like Able Friend, Beauty Generation, Viva Pataca and Fairy King Prawn are not.
IFHA members are able to apply for three additional names to be protected each year. Under that rule, the Hong Kong Jockey Club applied to protect Golden Sixty in 2023, which was subsequently approved by the IFHA Executive Council.
Also protected are stallions who have produced at least 15 individual Group 1 winners and broodmares who have produced at least two Group 1 winners and one other black type winner. Horses that win LONGINES World’s Best Racehorse also earn protection.
Of those in the Top 50 highest earners of all time as calculated by Hawk Eye View last month, 20 are not protected, including Gold Ship, Bella Nipotina, Forever Young, Nature Strip and Panthalassa.
Perhaps it is time for the IFHA to protect the names of all winners of their 11 designated races. That will be another important step towards harmonisation in an increasingly globalised sport. ∎
