When Daffodil won the Group One AJC Australian Oaks at Randwick in April, it was the first win by a New Zealand-trained horse in the race since Domino in 1990.The statistic was another example of how tough New Zealand trainers find it to win big races in Australia, but it was a stellar year for NZ-bred horses across the ditch with 18 Group One victories, including nine during the Sydney autumn carnival.Daffodil was one of the undoubted stars of the season. She gave her 72-year-old trainer Kevin

When Daffodil won the Group One AJC Australian Oaks at Randwick in April, it was the first win by a New Zealand-trained horse in the race since Domino in 1990.

The statistic was another example of how tough New Zealand trainers find it to win big races in Australia, but it was a stellar year for NZ-bred horses across the ditch with 18 Group One victories, including nine during the Sydney autumn carnival.

Daffodil was one of the undoubted stars of the season. She gave her 72-year-old trainer Kevin Gray his first Australian Group One win, while the triumph was one of number of highlights for her owner-breeders Garry and Mary Chittick.

Their Waikato Stud scored goals throughout the year through the efforts of stallions Pins, No Excuse Needed, who sired Daffodil, and O'Reilly, who eclipsed the mighty Zabeel as champion sire in NZ for 2008-09.

Daffodil won the Group One Windsor Park Plate in the spring before finishing a good fourth in the Caulfield Cup. She was knocked out of contention in the Melbourne Cup.

The rise of Monaco Consul caught the public's imagination. The three-year-old colt, named after part-owner Owen Glenn's spat with Winston Peters over Glenn's aspiration to be New Zealand's consul in Monaco, was only a one-race winner when he headed to Sydney in the autumn.

He won the Group One Spring Champion Stakes, then triumphed in one of Australian racing's classics, the Victoria Derby for trainers Mike and Paul Moroney.

The success of Monaco Consul and three-year-old Cox Plate winner So You Think heralded the latest boom shuttle sire, former British champion racehorse High Chaparral who stands at Windsor Park Stud.

Mufhasa was named 2008-09 horse of the year after winning the Waikato Sprint and the $1 million Telegraph Handicap. He couldn't replicate the form in the big Australian races, but was being prepared at year's end for another hit on the Telegraph in January.

Katie Lee quickly became a darling of the track late in the year. One of the country's best juveniles, she became the first horse to win both the One Thousand and Two Thousand Guineas double since their inception at Riccarton in 1973.

She had to do it the hard way too, with jockey Opie Bosson having to chart his way out of plenty of traffic problems in both races, causing trainers Debbie and Graeme Rogerson and co-owner Sir Patrick Hogan a few nervous moments.

Awapuni trainer Jeff Lynds had a good year with Vosnee Romanee causing a boilover to win the $1.2 million Kelt Capital Classic and potential star Wall Street proving too strong for a good quality field in the Group Three Coupland's Bakeries Mile at Riccarton in November.

John Wheeler took out the Group One Queensland Derby with Court Ruler and had a golden run of victories over both the flat and fences in the winter. He was also an outspoken critic of Racing Victoria's decision to can jumps racing from 2011, a decision which is still being fought.

Sadly, 2008 AJC Australian Derby winner Nom Du Jeu had to be retired after failing to overcome an injury, but trainers Murray and Bjorn Baker look to have a worthy successor in Harris Tweed who won the Group Two Tulloch Stakes in Sydney then was an unlucky fifth in the Melbourne Cup.

Mark Walker's impressive CV in the training ranks was enhanced when he easily took out the 2008-09 premiership and his stocks only improved when James McDonald became his stable jockey.

McDonald, only 17, is still an apprentice but won the jockeys' premiership after a stirring battle with Sam Spratt.

Spratt's win on Mufhasa in the Telegraph was all the more poignant as six years earlier she had suffered nasty head injuries in a fall at Trentham, which resulted in some years away from riding.

Popular horse Sir Slick never seemed out of the wars and took over racing's soap opera status from jockey Lisa Cropp.

After a disastrous campaign in Melbourne in 2008, he returned to a spectacular win in the Thorndon Mile in January.

He was incredibly brave after running six times in six weeks during the Brisbane winter carnival, racking up some good placings, but his owners Graeme Nicholson and Barry Brown fell out over trainer Nicholson's wish to campaign Sir Slick in Australia in the spring and the matter ended in court, with Nicholson paying Brown out for his share.

Sir Slick was scratched from the Cox Plate when vets said he was lame, much to Nicholson's contrary opinion, returned home and won again before a bizarre incident in which glass shards were found in the horse's feed bucket.

Mystery unsolved, but Slick was unhurt and is back racing.

Cropp's four-year legal battle over a positive test to methamphetamine finally came to an end this year.

She was disqualified from riding for nine months in June, fined $7,500 and ordered to pay $92,000 in costs. She has not paid that amount and is on New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing's forfeit list, so there will be no return to the saddle until that is paid.

Honours in the jumping world were shared. Jo Rathbone was the top jockey in the 2008-09 premiership, while Richard Eynon won the jumps season prize.

Off the track it was a tough year. While a select group of million-dollar events, including the $2.2 million NZ Derby, kept their stakes, the prizemoney for lower-rated events plunged as officials took the razor to stakes in the wake of the recession and a drop in turnover.

Eyebrows were raised when the Racing Board brought in Andrew Brown from Britain as its new chief at a reported salary of around $900,000, some $400,000 more than his predecessor.

Because of the falling revenues, Brown quickly instigated a $12 million cut in operating costs, with some redundancies. By year's end he had introduced a second racing channel, giving the option of wall-to-wall racing or more in-depth coverage of feature races and meetings.

Late in the year, New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, with Racing Board backing, advanced the One Racing concept, advocating a merger between the gallops, harness and greyhound codes, citing potential savings of $11 million.

But Harness Racing NZ and Greyhound NZ Racing saw it as a power grab by the galloping folk, leaving the stage set for a political battle in 2010. Happy New Year indeed.