Redzel held aloft his world cup, not once, but twice, with two incredible exhibitions of power

As the inspiring back-to-back winner of the first two runnings of The Everest at Royal Randwick, Redzel shot to national fame after winning the $10 Million race in October 2017, and then successfully defended his crown in the world’s richest sprint race on turf in 2018. A winner of over $16 Million in prizemoney, Redzel sits third on the list of record prizemoney earners in Australian racing history, behind only wondermare Winx and sprint sensation Nature Strip.

Shortly after Redzel's birth in September 2012, Fleming put Eliza Park up for sale. Due to delays in securing a buyer, however, insolvency firm PPB Advisory put Fleming's operation into liquidation. As a result, it sent 26 of Fleming's horses through the 2013 Inglis Australian Weanling and Bloodstock Sale. Bought by Marquee Stud for AU$45,000, the upper Hunter Valley farm pinhooked him as a yearling, sending him through the 2014 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, where he was sold for AU$120,000 to the bid of Triple Crown Syndications. He is out of the mare, Millrich (Rubiton) and by the powerful sire, Snitzel (Redoutes Choice). Redzel's mother Millrich was a good racehorse that only ran 11 times, including a 3rd to Flying Spur in the 1995 Golden Slipper Stakes. But his maternal grandsire, Rubiton was a dynamic horse who won 11 from 16 up to 2000m. Millrich died shortly after Redzel was born and the weanling was fostered on to another mare who would raise the orphan foal.

He was such a burly foal and some orphans and difficult to foster, but he muscled his way onto his foster mare, Regal Arena, who could be difficult, but he didn’t give her a choice. Redzel was a debut winner at Warwick Farm as a 2-year-old and went on add a further 14 victories to his name and over three seasons as he firmly established himself in the top echelon of Australian sprinters. The runner-up in the Gr.2 Challenge Stakes and Gr.1 The Galaxy, each time by less than a head, he added the Gr.3 Hall Mark Stakes to his CV before finally getting that first elusive group 1 victory with his pillar-to-post Doomben 10,009 victory. It was also during that  autumn that Racing NSW supremo Peter V'landys first announced The Everest, to be run in October. Racing foreman, Lindy Wharekura, originally from New Zealand came up with the nickname, 'Richie', "after the greatest ever Captain, of the greatest ever team". The hashtag #richiefortheeverest trended on social media leading into the inaugural Everest Race largely thanks to the popular following Redzel has amongst the Snowden stable staff. Sent out as the fourth choice in the field of 12, Redzel was ridden by Kerrin McEvoy, holding off favorite Vega Magic by three-quarters of a length. It sparked joyous celebrations among Triple Crown's syndicate members, scenes that were repeated 12 months later when horse and jockey went back-to-back.

The six-year-old gelding led from the start in the second running of the 1200m sprint to take the $6m winner’s purse again and become Australia’s second-highest-earning racehorse in history. Redzel’s race slot was bought for $600,000 by Chinese billionaire Yuesheng Zhang who made his fortune through mines, windfarms and hotels. But the horse belongs to a group of 17 Australians with regular jobs. The owners included a concreter, Abram Savage, bus driver Michael Waddington, council worker Brad Playford, electrician Damien Yates and cancer survivor Peter Piras. They leapt on each other in a heaving throng of rain-drenched jubilation as Redzel won in front of a crowd of 40,578.

Zheng had made a deal with Redzel’s owners shortly after his first Everest win to effectively lease the horse to fill his slot for what is believed to be a 50-50 split of the prize money from the world’s third richest race. Redzel, who early in his life ended up in the hands of receivers, was retired in April 2020 with nearly sixteen and a half million in prizemoney

RACE RECORD - 39: 15-10-3

EARNINGS - A$16,444,000

G1 Darley Classic

G1 Doomben 10,000

G2 Shorts Stakes,

G2 Challenge Stakes |

G3 The Heath Stakes

G3 Hall Mark Stakes

G3 Concorde Stakes x3

2017 The Everest

2018 The Everest