Emancipation is an Australian horse that has been the Australian champion racehorse of the year 1984. A filly and unraced at two, the horse turned out to be a major racehorse by the age of three. She is a big name in the Australian horse-racing circle.
Emancipation is a famous thoroughbred racehorse in Australia, with a decent lineage. Fouled in 1969, her sire was Bletchingly and dam was Ammo Girl. Her dam sire was Gunsynd and grandsire was Biscay, both of which were popular racehorses in their times too.
A grey colour horse, she was initially meant to be a broodmare by her breeder. However, her trainer Neville Begg was later approached so that she could be trained to become a racehorse. With an excellent lineage, Emancipation turned out to be a major star turn in the Australian Racing Scenario within the following 5 years.
Emancipation raced at the age of three and four. She was the winner of 19 starts out of the 28 she ran in. Out of these victories six were the Group One wins, all of them held in Sydney.
10 of these starts were won by her when she was three. In the same year’s autumn she defeated Manikato, another champion racehorse, in George Ryder Stakes. She even happened to win the Doncaster Handicap. 9 of the 28 wins in the starts occurred while she was four.
These included five group one victories. The prominent wins in the same year included George Main Stakes in spring and Chipping Norton Stakes in the autumn. These followed her victories in other stakes as well. They included the George Ryder Stakes, the Rosemount Classic and the All aged Stakes. Most of her victories were in the 1600m races. Her jockey was R Quinton in most of her victories.
The most happening victory among all the above was the one in which she defeated the then champion Manikato in the George Ryder Stakes, winning by 2 and a half lengths. However, in the starts where she did not win, she was unplaced most of the times. 8 out of the 9 occasions she lost, she was unplaced. These also included two of her starts in Melbourne in spring of the same year. The season ended with Emancipation being declared as the racehorse of the year 1984.
Emancipation’s dominance in the racing circle was not merely limited to the fillies. She even happened to dominate the racing circles of the older horses at the Handicap as well as the WFA level alike. This was something terrific as no other filly could match her in the years that followed and even the years before her dominance.
At the age of four, in 1984, her 5 wins at the starts were successive. Her consistency is what made her a dominating horse.
The first among them were at the Apollo Stakes. Here she defeated Strawberry Road, the one that had earlier defeated her in the previous season of Cox Plate. In the same year at the Rosemount stakes her victory was marvellous as she had then carried a crushing weight of 60 kg.
Her come back in the year 1984 was a stunning one as she broke her own records and avenged most of her failures that she had faced in the previous year. Moreover, she did not only surpass her toughest competitors among the fillies but also excelled at the handicap and WFA levels.
Emancipation produced a grey colt called Royal Pardon (by Vice Regal) who too turned out to be a major Stakes winner in the coming years. She also produced 2 mares called Virage and LA Suffragette.
Even these mares later produced stakes winners like Virage da Fortune and Railings. Emancipation has made records which are magnificent even today.
The racing community has held Emancipation in such high regards that she is termed as one of the legendary horses of the Australian horse racing history. Her name shall be remembered in the times to come.
