KEY POINTS:
Like father, like daughter, right to the end.
That is the bizarre coincidence which has ended the career of top New Zealand pacer Mainland Banner on the same track and in the same race as her famous father, Christian Cullen.
Mainland Banner, this year's New Zealand Horse of the Year, looks unlikely to race again after her failure in last Saturday's A$325,000 Victoria Cup at Moonee Valley in Melbourne.
Her connections say she has a leg injury, although industry speculation is that the mare has been retired after not returning to her best form this season.
She will return home to New Zealand tomorrow to be bred with the stallion Peruvian Hanover.
It is intended to transfer the embryo to another mare, theoretically making it possible that Mainland Banner could return to racing.
But she is unlikely to be seen on the track again.
That would add to the uncanny similarities between Mainland Banner and her sire, Christian Cullen, one of the greatest pacers to have raced in New Zealand.
Soon after Mainland Banner burst on to the scene as a 3-year-old, she was nicknamed "Christian Cullen in a skirt", and she did her best to live up to the tag.
Last season she became the only 4-year-old mare to win New Zealand's greatest race, the New Zealand Trotting Cup, and dominated her own age group, just like her sire.
Christian Cullen's career ended six years ago when he was beaten and broke down in the Victoria Cup.
Mainland Banner looks set to enter the broodmares' paddock with the same last-start failure on her record.
The writing was on the wall for the great mare even before she started racing this season.
The Herald revealed in September she had leg problems which led to her programme being put back.
But all seemed to be well when she returned with a second in the Flying Stakes at Ashburton in October.
That gutbusting run was the beginning of the end for the 5-year-old, though, as she may never have fully recovered.
She was well beaten in the New Zealand Cup, then won a mares' race at Addington in national record time.
But last Saturday, she looked a shadow of her former self - physically and in her form.
She was also not suited this season by the arrival of Australian stayer Flashing Red in New Zealand during the spring.
His relentless racing style meant the mare was never able to get into her rhythm, as this season's open class pacing races were run in significantly quicker times than those of a year ago.
At her peak Mainland Banner might have handled that. Below her best she had no chance.
Trainer Robert Dunn says the mare is not officially retired, but the decision to bring her back from Australia, where she was to stay until February, suggests her career is over.
Her only major aim for the remainder of the season could be the $400,000 Auckland Cup in March, and she will not be ready for that if she cannot be worked over the summer.
While the news will startle harness racing fans, nobody is more shocked than driver Ricky May, who had not been told of the mare's progress yesterday.
He said: "It would be a shame if she is retired but you won't see a better mare than her."
Banner career
Mainland Banner
* Breeding: 5m Christian Cullen-Corporate Banner.
* Trainer: Robert Dunn.
* Driver: Ricky May.
* Record: 22 races, 17 wins, three seconds, $656,054.
* Highlights: 2006 Horse of the Year, New Zealand Cup, Messenger Pace, Taylor Mile, New Zealand Oaks.
