Who is the greatest GOAT of them all? And how do you measure greatness anyway? We invited our writers to rank their top 10 greatest athletes of all time, and asked some to write about their favourites. We’ll publish one GOAT a day this week. On Saturday, we’ll reveal our top 50, based on our experts’ votes.
GOAT Winx.Credit: Matthew Absalom-Wong
My selection never won a premiership, a world title or Olympic gold. A front- and back-page regular, she said even less than retired AFL star Dustin Martin. She was scandal-free her whole life, though no child would ever dream to be her.
My GOAT is a horse. Her name is Winx.
You might think I am being cheeky putting a horse at the top of a list of the greatest athletes of all time – and to an extent you’re right, but hear me out.
Look, I’m no misanthrope, but people make mistakes. It’s human. Even the best lose or fail occasionally. Look at Don Bradman, who was famously dismissed for a duck in his last Test innings. The saying “you’re only as good as your last game” clearly has not applied to him.
Winx, with jockey Hugh Bowman and trainer Chris Waller, after her final win in the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Stakes.Credit: Getty
Some fall foul of the law. Those that avoid off-field trouble might hold political and social views that differ greatly to yours. But not Winx – that we know of, anyway.
She was a humble champion. To borrow from Rudyard Kipling, she met with triumph and disaster and treated those two impostors just the same. Win or lose, she maintained a dignified silence after every race. No trash talking of her rivals, no excuses. A lot can be learnt from that.
On every benchmark of greatness, she excelled. Performance, longevity, character and box office appeal. All ticks.
Just as Bradman, my human GOAT, is defined by his average of 99.94, the numbers for Winx are her 33 consecutive race victories to close out her career. A world record 25 came in group 1 races. The four that mattered most came in Australia’s championship race, the Cox Plate. No horse will do that again – at least not in my lifetime.
For nearly four years, across nine campaigns in distances ranging from 1300 metres to 2200m, she was unbeatable in a sport where the best are retired young.
So much can go wrong in racing. Horses can miss the start, lose their jockey or get stuck in traffic. They can get hurt at training or be carrying an unknown injury or illness into a race (it’s not like they can tell you).
That she didn’t was testament to the horsemanship of her trainer Chris Waller – who raced her sparingly despite the lure of winning more prizemoney – jockey Hugh Bowman, and her champion qualities to be at her best every time she set foot on the track. On wet or dry ground, she could not be beaten.
She not only beat Australia’s best, she gapped them. Her eight-length romp in the 2016 Cox Plate remains the greatest winning margin in that race.
Her $26,451,174 in earnings is an Australian record. Based on today’s prizemoney, her extra winnings from the Cox Plate alone would have taken her through the $30 million mark.
Here’s a fun fact. If you placed a $10 bet on her at the start of her winning streak, and reinvested your winnings each time she raced, you would have finished with $788,549.31. Not that money, or betting, mattered in enjoying Winx.
The love Australians had for her could not be quantified. Racing may not hold the place it once did in Australian life, but few things in sport unite this country more than a champion racehorse.
We saw it with Makybe Diva when she won an unprecedented third straight Melbourne Cup in 2005, and again with the late Black Caviar, the champion sprinter unbeaten in her 25-race career. Either could lay claim to GOAT status on the track, but there’s a sentimental connection through Winx.
She transcended racing. TV ratings went up when she ran. They even made a movie about her. She brought the masses back to the track. There were sellout crowds for the big days. They came as well for lesser meetings. Parents brought their kids. I did.
My eldest daughter, Isabelle, was three we went to Flemington to see Winx win the Turnbull Stakes in 2017. We went back again the next year to see another victory, this one coming after a few nervous moments in the straight. Winx’s dominance was a touch lost on her.
“Why doesn’t Winx let her friends win?” she would ask after each of her wins.
Innocence and invincibility. For four years, Australian sport had a hero that could do no wrong. We expected the world of Winx – and we were not disappointed.
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