{"id":371072,"date":"2024-02-27T18:18:54","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T19:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=371072"},"modified":"2024-02-27T20:02:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T20:02:57","slug":"fitting-tribute-after-shock-death-of-melbourne-cup-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=371072","title":{"rendered":"'Fitting' tribute after shock death of Melbourne Cup champ"},"content":{"rendered":"

V\ufefferry Elleegant might be gone, but the champion horse will certainly not be forgotten.<\/p>\n

The Australian Turf Club has immortalised the great mare by renaming the Chipping Norton Stakes to the Verry Elleegant Stakes.<\/p>\n

Sydney's first Group 1 race\ufeff of the year will now remember the Chris Waller-trained mare who won the 2021 Melbourne Cup<\/a> and the 2020 Caulfield Cup.<\/p>\n

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Verry Elleegant also won the Chipping Norton in 2021 and 2022\ufeff, adding her name to a long list of iconic race horses including Phar Lap and Winx to have won the now 99-year-old miler.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, entrants will contest the Verry Elleegant Stakes (1600m) at Randwick for the first time. The mare died last week due to complications giving birth<\/a>, also losing her first foal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\ufeff"It's obviously tragic what happened, but this couldn't have come at a better time," retired jockey Corey Brown told Wide World of Sports at Tuesday's ATC autumn carnival launch.<\/p>\n

"It's right on everyone's mind with Verry Elleegant, the race is in her honour obviously.<\/p>\n

"I think it's so fitting how it's unfolded, to be the first Group 1 of the autumn, I think it's great."<\/p>\n

And, fittingly, the favourite for Saturday's Verry Ellegant Stakes is Fangirl – trained by Waller and ridden by top jockey James McDonald, who steered Verry Elleegant to victory in the 2021 Melbourne Cup.<\/p>\n

Waller has four horses nominated for the race but there's no doubt a Fangirl triumph would be the most emotional with McDonald on board.<\/p>\n

Brown – a two-time Melbourne Cup winning hoop – is keen to see what Fangirl (24: 8-4-3) can produce in the $1 million feature.<\/p>\n

\ufeff"I was pretty impressed a couple of weeks ago with Fangirl," Brown said of the horse's Apollo Stakes victory.<\/p>\n

"I've always been a fan of Fangirl, and now that Anamoe is out of the road I think it's her time to shine."<\/p>\n

\"Trainer<\/p>\n

Brown, 47, was forced into retirement \ufeffby injury, but has found a new home on camera as a special broadcast analyser on race days.<\/p>\n

"Obviously I'm a little disappointed that I'm not riding," he said.<\/p>\n

"It's been a little while now but still this time of year it gives you goosebumps when you see those good horses go out on the track."<\/p>\n

Sydney's autumn carnival kicks off at Randwick this week\ufeff and runs for a month.<\/p>\n

It features the Golden Slipper on March 23 and then the Star Championships over consecutive weekends in April.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

V\ufefferry Elleegant might be gone, but the champion horse will certainly not be forgotten. The Australian Turf Club has immortalised the great mare by renaming […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371072"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371077,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371072\/revisions\/371077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/371074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}