Harness » Inductees » Horses
Please select a horse below:
- Beau Don inducted in 2007
- Mount Eden inducted in 2007
- Daintys Daughter inducted in 2010
- Pure Steel inducted in 2010
- Village Kid inducted in 2010
Beau Don (1950s)
Bred and raced by Tammin farmer Les Carter, from the first time that he was put in a cart Beau Don showed his trainer Bill Foy that something special which separates the truly great horses from those which are merely very good.
As a 3yo Beau Don won his first six races and left a series of records smashed including taking one and half seconds of the WA Derby record with a sensational last lap that left fans gasping as he came from an apparently impossible position to win with ease.
Beau Don then set a new Australian mark for a three year old over 12 furlongs as he beat older horses.
As a 4yo Beau Don took his record to 11 wins in 13 starts as he became a new record holder for the quickest graduation through the metropolitan classes to open company.
Beau Don became the first horse to win successive WA Trotting Cups lowering the State record by seven seconds in the process with wins in 1952 and 1953.
His awesome displays of speed attracted fans to Gloucester Park in their droves, despite a draconian handicapping system that saw Beau Don conceding almost impossible handicaps to his rivals. That he was still able to win 35 races in Perth against the very best is testament to his remarkable ability.
Fans loved him like no horse before him and only a select few since.
Principal Wins
3yo season
1952 WA Derby Group One
1952 WA Sires Produce Stakes
4yo Season
1952 WA Pacing Cup Group One
1953 WA Inter Dominion heat
1953 WA Inter Dominion heat
5yo Season
1954 WA Pacing Cup Group One
1954 South Australian Inter Dominion heat
1954 WA Easter Cup
7yo Season
1957 New Year Handicap
Mount Eden (1960s/1970s)
Mount Eden won six successive races as a 3yo shattering a series of State, Australian and World Records in the process.
Newspapers carried banner headlines and the colt’s fan base grew to almost outlandish proportions as he became Western Australia’s premier sports star. Such was the colt’s drawing power that 5000 attended trials at Gloucester Park to watch him perform.
His value grew with his reputation and his owners later accepted an American offer of 300-thousand dollars, at that time the highest price paid for an Australian horse - pacer or galloper.
A scorching time trial at the 1971 New Zealand Inter Dominion carnival saw Mount Eden ranked in the fastest 20 pacers in the world and earned his owners an invitation to the 1971 Miracle Mile.
In a typical display Mount Eden’s woeful barrier manners saw him lose a conservative 25 metres at the start against the best horses in Australasia before applying pressure at the 600 metre mark and then thrashing his rivals to score a famous win by 15 metres. It remains the benchmark for performances in Australia’s premier sprint race.
Principal Wins
3yo season
1970 Western Gateway Stakes - World Record
1970 WA Sires Produce Stakes - State Record
4YO SEASON
1970 WA Christmas Handicap
1971 NSW Miracle Mile Group One
Daintys Daughter(1960s/1970s)
Bred by her owner/trainer Jock Coleman at his Cunderdin farm and foaled in 1963, Daintys Daughter began her career as a 3yo in the summer of 1967 and brought up the first of her 36 wins at Kellerberrin.
Transferred to the stables of Coleman’s great mate Bernie Cushing as a 4yo, Cushing was at the reins for 29 of her 33 Perth wins.
In a century of harness racing in Perth no other mare has won more than 25 city class races.
In the 1969 Meteor Mile at Gloucester Park Daintys Daughter set a new World Record mile mark of 1:58.8 for a mare on a half-mile track bettering the 1:59.2 set by Countess Adios at Delaware, Ohio in 1960.
It was just the third sub-2:00 race mile in Australia, bettered only by stallion Halwes which ran 1:58.6 in the 1968 Miracle Mile. She bettered the 1:59.0 run by champion New Zealand mare Robin Dundee in winning the 1967 Miracle Mile.
Her performances earned her the honour of being the first Western Australian horse invited to compete in the Miracle Mile.
When Daintys Daughter won the 1970 WA Pacing Cup by an ever-widening margin of 12yds, her time of 4:07.0 for the two miles from a standing start bettered the previous World Record of 4:07.6 set by New Zealand legend Johnny Globe in winning the 1954 New Zealand Cup.
She amazed racegoers with a remarkable win in the 1971 Fremantle Cup overcoming a 24 yard handicap and coming from near last at the bell, four and five horses wide, to win running away by eight yards from Comet Again.
Daintys Daughter remains the only mare to win the WA Pacing Cup/Fremantle Cup double since World War 11.
Principal Wins
3yo season
WA Country Derby
4YO SEASON
WA Christmas Gift
5YO SEASON
J P Stratton Cup
Meteor Mile Invitation Stakes (World Record)
6YO SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One (World Record)
WA State Sprint Championship
7YO SEASON
Fremantle Cup Group One
Pure Steel (1970s/1980s)
Pure Steel was born in New South Wales in 1971 and purchased as a yearling by Perth bookmaker and businessman Russell Roberts for $2,400.
Pure Steel won the WA Derby and, as a 4yo, was taken to Adelaide for the 1976 Inter Dominion carnival with a record of 10 wins in just 15 starts.
He set an Australian Record for 1800 metres, when winning a heat on the opening night, but despite drawing the coveted pole position for the final, he was unable to run down the front-running Carclew.
While the biggest prize in harness racing was to continue to elude Pure Steel, almost every other major prize fell his way and often more than once.
He won four successive WA Pacing Cups in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979 and remains the only three-time winner of Victoria’s A G Hunter Cup.
Pure Steel’s 1978 AG Hunter Cup win in World Record time, after racing outside NSW champion Rip Van Winkle, is still regarded by many as the greatest race ever run at Moonee Valley.
Pure Steel was an amazing athlete over a distance and in 1977 he won the 3300 metre Victorian Marathon rating 2:02.1.
The race is no longer run over 3300 metres, as it was considered too hard on the horses - perhaps mortal horses but never too hard for Pure Steel.
While Pure Steel was the undisputed staying champion of Australia he could also sprint at the highest level as evidenced by his win in the 1978 Miracle Mile. Pure Steel was the fastest horse in Australia in 1978 and again in 1980.
He was voted Australian Harness Horse of the Year in 1980 and was regarded by many as unlucky to not take this title in 1978 when honours went to the trotter Maori’s Idol.
Principal Wins
3yo season
WA Derby Group One
4yo SEASON
WA Christmas Gift
5yo SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One
Victorian AG Hunter Cup Group One
Victorian Marathon Stakes
6yo SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One
Victorian AG Hunter Cup Group One
7yo SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One
South Australian Pacing Cup Group One
8yo SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One
Fremantle Cup Group One
Victorian AG Hunter Cup Group One
Match Race of the Century
Village Kid (1980s/1990s)
Village Kid was foaled in New Zealand on 4th December 1980 and, acting on the recommendation of Perth farrier Dudley Anderson, was bought for a little over $36,000 Australian dollars and commenced racing in Perth as a 4yo.
Later that season, as an M2 class 4yo, Village Kid won the 1985 WA Pacing Cup beating a very short-priced favourite Preux Chevalier.
A month later he finished a luckless second to Preux Chevalier in the Inter Dominion but then won the Inters the next year as a 5yo in Brisbane.
Village Kid owns the greatest winning sequence in Australian harness history after winning 19 successive races between February 1987 and February 1988.
While others may have won more in succession, all of Village Kid’s wins came in fast-class races and included four Group One races across three States.
He shares the record of four WA Pacing Cup wins with another legend in Pure Steel and may have won five successive WA Cups had a barrier draw malfunction not caused the 1987 WA Pacing Cup to be re-drawn after Village Kid had originally drawn barrier one.
Village Kid is the only Western Australian pacer to have won two NSW Miracle Miles and his total of 13 Group One races is also a WA record.
Village Kid’s 5yo, 6yo, 7yo and 8yo seasons saw him acknowledged as the best pacer in the Southern Hemisphere across each of those seasons.
From the time Village Kid turned 4yo until the end of his 8yo season he had 100 starts for 70 wins and 22 placings.
During this period he was twice voted Australian Harness Horse of the Year and was the first horse to be voted Australian Aged Pacer of the Year on three occasions.
As an 8yo Village Kid became the first and to date the only horse to win all three heats of an Inter Dominion twice when he achieved the feat in the 1989 Perth championship.
Principal Wins
4yo season
WA Pacing Cup Group One
FHRC Romeo Hanover Pace
5yo SEASONWA
Pacing Cup Group One
NSW Miracle Mile Group One
NSW Lord Mayors Cup Group One
Victorian AG Hunter Cup Group One
QLD Inter Dominion final Group One
6yo SEASON
FHRC Members Flying Mile
Mount Eden Sprint
7yo SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One
WA Australian Pacing Championship Group One
NSW Miracle Mile Group One
NSW MH Treuer Memorial Group One
Fremantle Cup Group One
8yo SEASON
WA Pacing Cup Group One
Fremantle Cup Group One
