By MICHAEL GUERIN
First there was the New Zealand defence of our racing pride - last night the invasion started.
Champion mare Sunline continued New Zealand's proudest racing season of the past decade with a never-say-die victory in the $NZ2.65 Hong Kong Mile at Sha Tin Racetrack last night.
Her half-head win over local hero Fairy King Prawn was just the latest chapter in a year when New Zealand racehorses have outshone most of our elite sports teams.
Sunline started the magical run with her record-equalling second Cox Plate win in Melbourne in October.
Then New Zealand gelding Brew stole the race that stops two nations with his Melbourne Cup win last month. On that occasion he saw off the Northern Hemisphere invaders, proving that Australasia's best thoroughbreds are world class on their home patch.
But while Brew's win will be remembered by more Kiwis, Sunline's win last night holds greater international significance.
Few tasks tax highly strung thoroughbreds more than overseas travel, yet Sunline took that challenge in her stride last night.
She took on a high-class field of international-class racehorses and beat them the hard way, by making all the rules in front and daring them to run her down.
Fairy King Prawn nearly did. But that was Hong Kong's best, racing on his home track in an environment he knows, whereas Sunline was out of her element, out of her home country and out of this world.
"This just goes to prove what a champion she is," said former New Zealand jockey Greg Childs, now based in Australia.
The win extended Sunline's record as the richest racehorse born in Australasia, with over $9.3 million in the bank.
But now Sunline the defender of national pride has become Sunline the invader of foreign lands, that bank balance could be set to explode.
Her Takanini trainers, the father-and-son team of Trevor and Stephen McKee, will now aim Sunline at the $US6 million Dubai World Cup in March.
After last night's victory, the already numerous invitations to the world's greatest races for Sunline are certain to multiply.
That gives the McKees the option of chasing a third Cox Plate in Melbourne next October or becoming a more permanent fixture on the international racing stage.
But even if the 5-year-old mare never wins another race - as if that is going to happen! - the queen of the turf looks certain to be queen of the sales ring.
When her record-smashing career is over, Sunline has guaranteed dates with some of the greatest stallions in the world with the resulting progeny likely to be worth the gross domestic product of a small country.
Sunline's win spearheads Kiwi invasion
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