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3.

Champ ties up fourth Chipping Norton

02/03/2002

What a grand campaigner Tie The Knot is. In an era when many a ‘champion’ comes and goes in a season or two, Tie The Knot has been a constant since making his debut as a two-year-old way back in June 1997.

Since that humble beginning (Tie The Knot ran fifth to Loophole over 1,200m at Warwick Farm) the Nassipour gelding has:

Raced 60 times for 21 wins and 17 placings; 
Accumulated $6,184,835 in stakes — the second highest earner in Australian racing history; 
Won 13 Group Ones — only one behind title holder Kingston Town; 
Won four Chipping Norton Stakes — the only horse to win the same Group One race on four consecutive occasions. 
Perhaps he has not previously received the adulation that lesser credentialled steeds have captured, but when you consider he has only finished out of the money 11 times since running eighth in the 1998 STC Canterbury Guineas-G1, he will live long in the hearts of owners Sandy Tait and Jill Nivison, along with Warwick Farm trainer Guy Walter. Oh, and since that Canterbury Guineas, he has raced 47 times, 27 of them at Group One level and all at stakes level (the only one at Listed level being the Japan Plate in April 1999).

A review of the 2002 AJC San Miguel Chipping Norton Stakes-G1 appears in the Group and Listed Races section, but suffice to say that the seven-year-old veteran was awesome, holding off strong challenges from Freemason and Universal Prince.

It appears that Tie The Knot and Universal Prince, fitter for his first run back since his ‘aborted’ Melbourne Cup campaign, will next meet in the STC Ranvet Stakes-G1 on Saturday 9 March. That should be some race!

It’s certainly been a big couple of weeks for owners Tait and Nivison. Their famous red and white livery was also carried to success by Spinning Hill two weeks ago in the VRC Lightning Stakes-G1.

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