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Let's Elope

Let's Elope
Sire Nassipour
Grandsire Blushing Groom
Dam Sharon Jane
Damsire Battle-Waggon
Sex Mare
Foaled (1987-11-20)20 November 1987
Died 11 September 2016(2016-09-11) (aged 28)
Country New Zealand
Colour Chestnut
Breeder Highview Stud
Owner Fleiter family
Dennis Marks and Kevin White (1991)
Trainer Dave O'Sullivan
Bart Cummings
Record 26: 11-0-5
Earnings A$2,940,250 - NZ$42,925 - US$169,000
Major wins
Caulfield Cup (1991)
Melbourne Cup (1991)
LKS MacKinnon Stakes (1991)
Turnbull Stakes (1991)
Australian Cup (1992)
C F Orr Stakes (1992)
St George Stakes (1992)
Awards
Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year (1992)
Last updated on 18 June 2007

Let's Elope (20 November 1987 – 11 September 2016) was a Champion Thoroughbred racehorse in Australia.

Bred by Highview Stud in Hamilton, New Zealand, Let's Elope was a giant chestnut mare who in 1991 became the first mare in more than 50 years to complete Australia's famed Caulfield Cup - Melbourne Cup double (the "Cups double"). The last mare to complete the double had been Rivette in 1939.

By the Blushing Groom stallion Nassipour, out of Sharon Jane, she was a NZ$16,000 purchase at the 1989 New Zealand Magic Millions sale. Originally trained by Dave O'Sullivan for the Fleiter family, she was un-raced as a two-year-old but won her first start as a three-year-old in 1990. Despite showing above-average ability, her record in New Zealand was underwhelming, and, on the advice of her trainer, the owners accepted a NZ$150,000 offer for her. Her new owners, Dennis Marks and Kevin White, transferred her to the Australian stables of the “Cups King”, Bart Cummings.

Let's Elope was close-up in her first two starts for Cummings, and, while down the track in the wet at Caulfield, was a different horse on top of the ground. In a superb season, Let's Elope began a seven-race winning streak in the Turnbull Stakes, on the first weekend of October, took the Mackinnon Stakes and both the Cups, and returned in the new year for the Orr Stakes, the St George Stakes, and the Australian Cup, in course record time, on Labour Day in March. A fetlock injury then cut short her season, but Let's Elope had the 1992 Horse of the Year Award in her keeping.

She returned at five, and, while thwarted by wet tracks for much of the spring, won a match race with Better Loosen Up at Caulfield and was narrowly defeated by Super Impose in a classic Cox Plate (after the race, she was relegated from second to fifth for cutting off the unlucky Better Loosen Up). Ten days later, Let's Elope was one of three scratchings from the Melbourne Cup. After a bleeding attack in the Japan Cup, Let's Elope continued her career in the United States.


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