Makybe Diva: Monumental fame

Last year, in September 2025, Mr Brightside did what no horse had done before, in winning the Makybe Diva Stakes at Flemington for a third year in succession, ridden each time by the same jockey, Craig Williams. The race has a pedigree stretching back to 1948, originally the Craiglee Stakes, boasting a panoply of champion winners since the days of Comic Court, Chicquita and Sailor’s Guide.

For the race day honouring her name, Makybe Diva, the famous race mare, was present as a special guest at the ripe old equine age of 26. We did not know it then, but it would be her last appearance at Flemington. In November twenty years earlier, she also did what no horse had done before, in winning the historic Melbourne Cup for a third year in succession, ridden each time by the same jockey, Glen Boss.

For her nostalgic return visit on Makybe Diva Stakes Day, the retired broodmare led the runners out onto the track from the Mounting Yard for the running of the Group 1 race. Her owner Tony Santic and her original trainer, David Hall, were there for the reunion, along with Glen Boss himself.

There was one further piece of racing symmetry on the day. As Makybe Diva headed to the Mounting Yard ahead of the race, she passed her double. Just a few metres away and gazing in her direction stood the beautiful statue of Makybe Diva, larger than life. That bronze, on a low plinth, holds pride of place on the Flemington Lawn. It was made by English sculptor, Philip Blacker, and was officially unveiled back on Makybe Diva Stakes Day in 2007, the year when the race took on its new name. It is rare for a statue and the life that it honours to meet. This all came together on Makybe Diva Stakes Day 2025.

It seemed timely then to contact Philip Blacker at his home and studio in Oxfordshire, to seek his reaction and invite his reflections on having created the Makybe Diva statue. Philip was delighted to learn that, on that early spring day, the mare was alive, healthy and revisiting the scene of her greatest triumphs.

Back in November 2005 there had been emotional scenes at Flemington when Makybe Diva won her third Melbourne Cup. At the trophy presentation, Tony Santic announced that she would be retired from racing forthwith. Her career tally stood at 15 wins including a Sydney Cup, an Australian Cup, a Turnbull Stakes and a Cox Plate. Six of her wins had been at Flemington.

By the time Philip Blacker came to meet her in Australia, she had already gone to the stud. Here he could run his expert eye over her impressive physique. He knew he wanted to capture ‘the lovely loping, loose way she walked’.

An expert eye indeed: Philip Blacker knew his horses first hand. Before he became a world renowned sculptor he had enjoyed a thirteen-year career as a successful professional steeplechase rider in Britain, with 340 winners, riding most frequently for trainer Stan Mellor, himself a former champion jockey. In a sense, he was already sculpting horses from the saddle, knowing with all his senses how a racehorse is made, how it walks, how its muscles move, its ears twitch, its mane flows, its eye subtly signals its intent. In 1982 he retired from race riding, from the discipline of controlling his weight and the discomfort of injuries, to make sculpting and painting his full time calling.

Philip Blacker has one other highly significant connection, albeit tangential, with Australian racing. In 1973 he rode the outstanding jumper Spanish Steps into fourth place in the Grand National at Aintree, the world’s most famous and challenging steeplechase. That was the year when Sir Chester Manifold’s Australian-bred champion Crisp, carrying top weight of 12 stone (76.2 kg), led almost throughout the race, for much of the contest half a furlong in front, only to be caught in the very final strides by Red Rum with 10.4 kilograms less on his back. Together they smashed the course record by nearly 19 seconds. Before the race Philip had fancied his chances on Spanish Steps but was beaten by the pace. He remembers the race clearly, witnessing the finish many, many lengths astern. In all, Philip Blacker rode in nine Grand Nationals, fourth again on Royal Stuart in 1980.

As for Red Rum, that gelding was the Makybe Diva of Grand Nationals, the first and only horse to have won the race three times, successful again in 1974 and 1977 and finishing second in 1975 and 1976. Philip Blacker, still early in his sculpting career, was commissioned to produce his first life size statue, completed in 1988—Red Rum, for Aintree Racecourse.

You will find Philip Blacker statues of famous horses at racecourses around the world: they include steeplechaser Desert Orchid at Kempton Park, Generous at Epsom, Kentucky Derby winner and champion sire Northern Dancer at Woodbine, Toronto, and triple winner of the Jockey Club Cup, Persian Punch, at Newmarket. In another Australian connection, the popular Persian Punch twice travelled to Flemington, finishing third in the 1998 Melbourne Cup to Jezabeel and third in 2001 behind Ethereal.

Philip explains the painstaking process of creating a statue in bronze. The imaginative stage is the small scale maquette. When it comes to modelling from life, as with Makybe Diva, this is aided by the artist’s observation, sketches and photographs. The finished maquette can now be measured exactly to scale to prepare for the full-size version. A large steel frame is welded to create an internal support, bulked out towards proportion with chicken wire. The clay is applied for an exact finish. The horseman’s hands surely help. In a sense, the sculpture comes to life: Philip says this is the agonising part of the project. After that comes the complex business of sending the finished clay sculpture to the metal foundry to be cast in bronze. And in the case of Makybe Diva, it then had to packed painstakingly and freighted to Australia.

‘I wanted to be a jockey from the moment I was born,’ Philip Blacker says, only partly in jest. It was the glamour of racing that drew him into the sport, and the excitement of the great racing carnivals such as Aintree and Cheltenham. He pursued the sport until his body began to tell him otherwise, and by that time sculpting had become a second passion. Horses are not his only subject, but sculpting horses has allowed those two passions to run together for a lifetime.

The static statue is not for Philip Blacker. He wants, of course, to capture the likeness. Animation, he says, is the key—the feel of life. His Makybe Diva walks beautifully, purposefully, like a mannequin. Her near front leg stretches forward, tip of the hoof gently touching the ground. Her head tilts slightly to one side, as if seeking that distant winning post of dreams. ‘I want it to look as though she is about to walk off the plinth.’

We mourn our real-life Makye Diva now, gone at the end of summer, 2026. But this is the Makybe Diva that Philip Blacker captured for Flemington. She will be there for all time.