Top 5 Toorak Handicap Winners

The Toorak Handicap (1600m) is a time-honoured classic that is run at Caulfield in October on Caulfield Guineas Day. See who made our list of top 5 Toorak Handicap winners since 2000.

In modern times, the feature race has been taken out by some outstanding gallopers.

Top 5 Toorak Handicap winners.

1. MORE JOYOUS (2010)

The Gai Waterhouse-trained More Joyous lands in at top spot of our list of Toorak Handicap winners and certainly had the better career in comparison to other winners, while we can’t overlook the fact that she carted 58kg to victory when showing her class in the 2010 Toorak Handicap. The versatile mare was no stranger to big weights, carrying 57.5kg to victory in the 2012 Doncaster Mile just shy of the 58kg that another champion mare, Sunline carted to victory in 2002. The dominant mare of her generation, More Joyous won eight Group 1 races and was the Champion Middle Distance Racehorse in 2012.

2. DIVINE MADONNA (2007)

A horse that helped establish Mark Kavanagh as a trainer was Divine Madonna and the exciting mare dazzled racegoers with her get back and run on style of racing. She burst on to the scene in 2006, winning an Emirates Stakes (1600m) and then took out the Toorak Handicap in 2007, one of three Group 1 wins that year that also included the Queen Of The Turf Stakes (1600m) and the Myer Classic (1600m).

3. UMRUM (1999/2000)

A popular galloper from the Leon Macdonald stables in South Australia, Umrum was a two-time winner of the Toorak Handicap, winning in 1999 before backing up and thrashing his rivals in the 2000 edition with Jimmy Cassidy on board. The underrated galloper raced in the Toorak on six occasions, placing three other times and was a stakes winner in four different states in Australia.

4. SOLZHENITSYN (2012/2013)

Like Umrum, Solzhenitsyn was another two-time winner of the Toorak Handicap that came from outside of Victoria, trained out of Queensland by Robert Heathcote. He carted 52kg to victory in 2012 before coming back again in 2013 with 58kg. Sharing the same name as a former Russian writer and political prisoner, he chalked up 13 career wins with a number of those coming earlier in his career in New Zealand and in Queensland before his successes in the Toorak Handicap.

5. REGAL ROLLER (2004)

Regal Roller enthralled Caulfield racegoers for a period of time in 2003 and 2004. All up, the front runner raced 36 times for 12 wins with eight of those coming at the heath. In the spring of 2004 he won four on the trot with those wins coming in early feature races including the Liston Stakes (1400m), Memsie Stakes (1400m) and Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes (1400m) before leading and hanging on in the Toorak Handicap. He lost no admirers when placing 5th in the Cox Plate behind Savabeel that year.

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