Lance O’Sullivan finally scored his Cox Plate win on a brilliant Kiwi racehorse

Lance O’Sullivan had no joy in his first three Cox Plate attempts, finishing 2nd in 1986 on Our Waverley Star in the "Race of the Century" against Bonecrusher, 11th in 1989 on The Phantom and eighth in 1990 on Horlicks, who a year earlier had won the Gr.1 Japan Cup (2400m) in world record time. But finally O’Sullivan’s luck changed in 1991 when he rode the outstanding galloper Surfers Paradise, trained by his father and brother. Family stalwart, Dave O'Sullivan, known universally by his initials DJ, was a New Zealand training legend with Surfers Paradise sitting up there amongst his other great runners in Mr Tiz, Horlicks My Blue Denim, Our Waverley Star, Snap, O'Reilly, Miltak, Shivaree and Oopik.

Surfers Paradise had been New Zealand Champion Three-Year-Old the previous season with four Group One wins, but came up against a star-studded line-up and hadn’t won as a four-year-old, though he had twice been Group placed. He went into the Cox Plate with a last-start unplaced run at Ellerslie over 1575m. Surfers Paradise was out of the sire, Crested Wave, via his dam, Lady Aythrope and was named after Queensland's iconic beachside strip. The Coast draws thousands of Kiwi's each year searching for sun, fun and sand, but in October 1991 this Kiwi with the distinctly Aussie name was headed for the Melbourne turf.

Surfers Paradise was sensational at two and three years of age, winning 10 of his 13 starts, including the New Zealand 2000 Guineas, the New Zealand Derby, the Air New Zealand Stakes, and the Rosehill Guineas, but finished sixth, as 10/9 favourite (approximately $2.10), in the AJC Derby when attempting to win his ninth race in a row. At four, Surfers Paradise mixed his form in the early part of the spring, with unplaced runs on wet tracks interspersed with seconds to Rough Habit in the Mudgway Stakes and Castletown in the Kelt Capital Stakes.As a result, Surfers Paradise was an outsider, at 14/1, for his Australian reappearance in the Cox Plate.

Entering Moonee Valley's short home straight, an audible roar breaks out from the crowd as Super Impose raced to the lead, and died away to silence as Surfers Paradise takes over midway down the straight. The trainer of the runner-up, Lee Freedman, quipped that it was the first time anything had ever come from behind to beat Super Impose. Freedman later reflected that it while he would have preferred to win, nevertheless he was 'happy' that the O'Sullivans (trainers Paul and Dave and jockey Lance) won because he had always had friendly relations with them and they had finished second in three previous runnings of the race - with Shivaree (1979), (Our) Waverley Star (1986), and Horlicks (1988).

Surfers Paradise became only the third New Zealand Derby winner after Bonecrusher (1985) and Castletown (1989) to pass $2 million in prizemoney. After this preparation, Surfers Paradise had a further 22 starts in New Zealand, and won six races, including the Hawke's Bay Cup. In three subsequent visits to Australia, however, he finished near the tail of the field in each of his six starts. After running his last race in Australia, in April 1994, Surfers Paradise was sent to the United States, where he contested poor quality races and died from a heart condition in the late-1990s

RACE RECORD - 47: 17-5-0 (Australia & NZ)
EARNINGS - $2,411,839

New Zealand 2000 Guineas (1990)
New Zealand Derby (1990)
New Zealand Stakes (1991)
Rosehill Guineas (1991)
W.S Cox Plate (1991)

Hawkes Bay Cup