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What a story last year was in The Galaxy run at Rosehill on Saturday.
Shelby Sixtysix won't be happening too many times again. The 2023 The Galaxy (1100m) at Rosehill on Saturday has plenty to live up to.
2023 THE GALAXY - RACE HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
The Galaxy is a Group 1 race for three year olds and up conducted by the Australian Turf Club at Rosehill Gardens.
The Galaxy was first run in 1972 and was won by Playbill.
The Galaxy is run over 1100m under handicap conditions and was run at Randwick until 2013, bar Warwick Farm in 2007. Ever since 2013 it has been at Rosehill.
The mares have turned it around of late. I Am Excited, In Her Time, Griante and Sweet Idea have won recently but the previous female winner of The Galaxy was the filly La Baraka in 1998. Ortensia did lose the race on a positive swab in 2010.
Until 2017, three year olds hadn't won for six years but they have a great record overall with 19 wins, including a streak of 12 wins from 19 runnings from 1992 to 2010.
In 1992, Schillaci won the Lightning Stakes, Oakleigh Plate, Newmarket Hcp, lost the Canterbury Stakes on protest and then won The Galaxy.
The only horses to win with more than 56.5kg are Luskin Star (57), Mr Tiz (58.5), Schillaci (57), Temple Of Boom (57) and Eduardo (57).
Before 2017, the previous seven winners of the race have won at $10 or better. 2020 saw a return to the roughies.
Shellscrape became the winner in 2010 after Ortensia's positive.
Nature Strip would go on in the Spring and substantiate his form with multiple G1 wins.
Eduardo backed up a track record breaking win in the Challenge at Randwick with a brilliant win under 57kg at Rosehill in 2021.
There was an almost unbelievable story when the country trained horse Shelby Sixtysix ran for the 8th time in 9 weeks and scored a crowd-pleasing victory.
It was worth $1,000,000 in 2023.
Notable Winners of The Galaxy include Bletchingly (1975), Luskin Star (1978), Manuan (1985), Snippets (1988), Mr Tiz (1991), Schillaci (1992), Gold Ace (1996), Spark Of Life (2004), Charge Forward (2005), Russian Revolution (2017), In Her Time (2018), Nature Strip (2019), Eduardo (2021) and Shelby Sixtysix (2022).
The 2022 Galaxy was won by Shelby Sixtysix from Big Parade and In The Congo.
