A leg issue has seen the star Wagga mare retired as one of Australia’s finest.

Bruce Harpley trained Frith for the majority of her eight Group One successes and looking back, knows she was a once in a lifetime horse

“We had a good two or three years that’s for sure when I trained her,” Harpley said.

While treated the same as all the other horses in his Junee stable, a number of special qualities stood out.

“She showed us what good horses are,” Harpley said.

“We all like to think we’ve got a good horse, but when you get one like her you find out what they really are.

“They are horses that never give in, have a tonne of ability to go with it and a will to win.

“She was the type of horse, even in trackwork or a preliminary, she had to be in front of the other horse.

“She’d pull and get that cranky but as soon as you levelled with a horse or poked a head in front she’d drop the bit and be as good as gold.”

Harpley believes her ability to recover so quickly after races was another special quality.

It was never as evident than after her Victoria Oaks victory.

“She had a fantastic metabolism and heart rate,” Harpley said.

“It’s not about what they can run so much as how they handle it when they do it.

“I can still remember after she won the Victoria Oaks we drove straight home, so we didn’t get home until about three in the morning.

“I put her out about seven and she was running out in the paddock with her tail up over her back with her ears pricked.

“I just went wow.

“You couldn’t imagine that was the horse who just won the Victoria Oaks and had travelled all the way home from Melton.

“She was galloping around like a horse who hadn’t been worked in a week.

“It is something out of this world when horses could do something like that and this is why she kept doing it.”

In a career filled with highs, Frith’s brilliant victory in the Group One Western Australian Oaks stands out as the highlight.

Both Harpley and owner-breeder Bernie Kelly rate it at the top of a glittering career.

“She’s had a wonderful career and has been a wonderful mare,” Kelly said.

“There were a lot of highlights along the way and it is pretty hard to pick one out but I think the Western Australian Oaks was one of the highlights.”

Harpley said the win was “out of this world”.

Frith leaves the racetrack with a record of 39 wins and 14 placings in 63 starts and a best mile rate of 1:50.1.

Only unplaced 10 times in her career, she pocketed $1,180,345 in prizemoney to make her the second richest Australian bred mare in history.

But as one curtain draws to a close, the daughter of Four Starzzz Shark will soon start another life – that as a broodmare.

Twice Kelly has tried to bred her twice via surrogate but to no avail.

Now the 79-year-old is hoping she can impart her qualities onto her foals.