Boom time for Australian fillies and mares

8 March 2024

IT is a boom time in Australian harness racing for fillies and mares.

A deep dive into the statistics from the 2023 season shows significant growth across all metrics for the female standardbred population.

Most significantly, prize money earned by female-only horses in 2023 increased by more than 9.5 per cent from $49,027,731 in 2022 to $53,691,085 last year.

The number of race starts be females grew by more than five per cent from 44,286 to 46,508, driven in part by 47 additional individual female horses racing during 2023 (3663 up from 3616 in 2022).

Importantly, the significant hike in prize money earned highlighted the strength of performance of female horses.

As did the increase in the number of individual wins. Females won 5080 races in 2023, up from 4942 the previous year, a rise of almost three per cent.

Last year, 2125 individual mares or fillies won at least once race, 31 more than that 2023.

And those winners combined for a total of 36,096 victories last year, up almost 6.2 per cent on 2022.

The shining female light was recently retired superstar Encipher (pictured), winner of the inaugural running of the world’s richest harness race, the $2.1mil TAB Eureka at Menangle last September.

Encipher raced eight times in 2023 for four wins, a second and banked a thumping $1,061,230.

She was second-only to Leap To Fame ($1,275,970) on the Australian prize money earnings list for 2023.

Similarly, star mare Queen Elida was second to globetrotting megastar Just Believe on the 2023 earnings list for Australian trotters.

The Brent Lilley-trained mare raced 21 times for 12 wins, seven placings and earned $372,950.

Further underlining the strong female influence, three-year-old filly Rockinwithattitude was third on the all-aged trotting earnings list with $203,940 from eight wins and two seconds in her 12 starts.

Back in the pacing ranks and it was the Menangle-trained filly Lux Aeterna ($359,823) who was the highest-earning two-year-old pacer of either sex in 2023.

A filly also topped the three-year-old pacing earnings list with the WA-based August Moon banking $252,660, well ahead of the richest male (Better Be The Best with $226,741).