On Friday May 1st Sunline lost her battle with the crippling hoof disease laminitis.

Stephen McKee, who trained Sunline in partnership with his father Trevor, said the mare had fought intense pain in her final days.

"She had her moments. Some weeks she'd look good, other weeks she'd slip back. Her last couple of weeks she'd really gone downhill and she'd spent a lot of time laying down," McKee said.

"Experts said she wouldn't have any quality of life in the paddock and her foot would have rotted, so there was no other option."

United States veterinarian Ric Redden, who is considered the world's premier expert on laminitis, was in Cambridge for a three-day seminar last week and agreed to inspect Sunline in Auckland on Monday.

McKee said an X-ray Redden took showed blood flow was being cut off to her hooves and bone in her feet was dying.

It's an awful end for such a great mare.

I saw her win her first race and like everyone else started to marvel at her toughness and courage as the wins kept rolling in. My personal favorite race was her second Doncaster win in 2002. She was the top weight with 58 kilos on her back and she shouldn't have won that race. In fact she looked beaten with the finish line approaching. Then she got up. I was sitting on the couch with my grand daughter and we were both screaming the house down as Sunline came home and won it. It was the most incredible race I ever saw her win.

After she had won 2 Cox Plate's I followed her to Melbourne in 2001 for her tilt at a third Cox Plate and then again for the 2002 Cox Plate for what was to be her final race.

I was so awestruck by her that when she raced in New Zealand I couldn't do the photofinish duties and handed those meetings over to by business partner.

I'd go and watch her and try to get that one great photo of her that summed her up. It wasn't easy. But finally as she went past the finish line in Melbourne on the first lap of her last race I got that one photo that I was after.

Here is that photo:

I was standing right on the finish line with Sunline's strapper Claire Bird. After the race I went out on the track with Claire as she went to lead Sunline back to scale and got a few more shots which I'll add here as well.

It was my grand daughter, Crystal, who rang me on Friday and told me the news about Sunline. We were both such big fans. When Crystal was about 2 I took her to see Sunline at the McKee place and after that she named her rocking horse Sunline.

I've been taking photos of horses for 30 years now, and I've seen thousands of good one and hundreds of great ones. I've seen a few champions.

But I've only ever seen one like Sunline.

Here are some of my favorite photos I took of her on those two trips to Melbourne.

Melbourne 2001 Cox Plate. Trevor and his mare about to saddle up and contest the race.	Melbourne 2001 Cox Plate. Sunline, Claire and Greg head into the mounting yard at Moonee Valley
Melbourne 2002 Cox Plate. Sunline, Claire and Greg return to scale in Sunline's final race.	Melbourne 2002 Cox Plate. Sunline, Claire and Greg return to scale in Sunline's final race. My favorite shot. Into the sun, with the crowd on it's feet giving the team a standing ovation. A very emotional moment in racing.
Melbourne 2002 Cox Plate. Trevor gives his mare a pat after the race.	Melbourne 2002 Cox Plate. Greg unsaddles Sunline for the last time.
Melbourne 2002 Cox Plate. All the photographers were lining up for this shot and I got pushed aside in the scrum. I gave Claire a shout asking her to look this way for me. Claire said to wait until the others had gone.	Thank you Claire.
Vale Sunline