Makybe Diva Stakes: A history written by champions

The Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes began life in 1948 as the Craiglee Stakes, named after Craiglee, the Sunbury property of former VRC chief steward Wilfred Johnston. Run first over 2000 metres, it was cut to the mile in 1965, renamed for Makybe Diva in 2007 following her three consecutive Melbourne Cup wins from 2003 to 2005, and elevated to Group 1 status in 2013.

Makybe Diva herself never ran in the race that now bears her name – she retired straight after her third Cup, finishing her career with 15 wins from 36 starts – but the race has become one of spring’s most reliable pointers to what’s coming next.

Ladies first

For its first decades, the race belonged to the mares. Chicquita won back-to-back editions in 1950 and 1951, twice finishing runner-up to Comic Court in that year’s Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup as part of one of the era’s defining rivalries; her old stable, Chicquita Lodge, still lends its name to a Flemington landmark. Bart Cummings’ Light Fingers won in 1965 before going on to give the trainer the first of his 12 Melbourne Cups – jockey Roy Higgins was famously so fond of her that he said he’d marry her if she could cook. Rose Of Kingston added her own chapter in 1982, backing up her Craiglee win with the Coongy Handicap and Australian Horse of the Year honours; her son Kingston Rule went on to win the 1990 Melbourne Cup.

A change of guard

Since the race took Makybe Diva’s name, the honour roll has told a different story. Southern Speed remains the only mare to win the renamed race, in 2012; every other name on the list since – Weekend Hussler, Northerly, Dissident, Incentivise, Shocking, I’m Thunderstruck – has been male.

Northerly’s win in 2002, while the race was still the Craiglee Stakes, stood out: the West Australian champion led throughout before adding the Caulfield Cup and Cox Plate that spring, reunited with jockey Greg Childs, who had ridden him to six straight wins including three at Group 1 level. Weekend Hussler took the 2008 edition as trainer Ross McDonald stretched his miler out towards the Caulfield Cup, Gatting produced one of the race’s great upsets at $101 in 2019, and Incentivise’s 2021 win launched a campaign that ran through the Turnbull Stakes and Caulfield Cup to a Melbourne Cup second.

Enter the war horse

Then, in 2023, along came a horse who would rewrite the race’s record book entirely. The Lindsay Park gelding Mr Brightside won that year, returned in 2024 to become the first horse since Sailor’s Guide in 1957 to win it twice, and went one better again in 2025 to become the race’s first three-time winner. Now nine, and coming back from his longest layoff yet, he lines up this year chasing a fourth – a feat that would put him in company with the likes of Winx and Manikato as one of Australian racing’s great serial winners. It is a story in its own right.