Timeless Words from Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.

Mapping My Life

I seem to be reading a bunch of great books these days - including a few that I've been 'meaning to get around to' reading for along time.

In the late '70s to early '80s I remember seeing a book on my parents huge living room bookshelf called 'Passages'. The only reason it stood out to a 10 year old was because the letters of the title were in the colours of the rainbow. Looked pretty ! But once I got it off the shelf, it was all about that adult stuff. Not kid reading and I wasn't interested.

Well, in NZ last year I went into a warehouse book store looking for a book to read on the flight home. 'Lo and behold, I came across 'Hilary's Choice' by Gail Sheehy. Now I've always been interested in Hilary Clinton - at least after she made some tough decisions to stay with Bill when he made some lousy choices. You know what I'm talking about. And although they were the 'boomer' generation when I was in my twenties, her choices still fascinated me.

So I grabbed the book about Hilary, but once I'd read the book I realised this was the author of 'Passages'. At that point I started tracking down a copy of 'Passages', only to realize that it was written in the mid-70s and not really up-to-date when it comes to what we're living right now.

Fortunately, Ms Sheehy has anticipated this and written a host of other books, including Understanding Men's Passages (as it sounds, 1998), New Passages (an updated version of the original, 1995) and The Silent Passage (about menopause, late 90's). I'm in the middle of reading the first two.

So what of New Passages? Well, its really a great read. Not only does it provide a general overview of how life is unfolding for myself and others RIGHT NOW, but its a well written book which provides some interesting, real person stories. Here are some quotes from the book.

On p 14...
We seem to be suspended from our spiritual selves. Vaclav Havel, the philosopher and former president of the Czech Republic remarked on the paradox of our times:

'Experts can explain anything in the objective world to us, yet we understand our own lives less and less. We live in the post-modern world where anything is possible and almost nothing is certain.'

Sheehy goes on to explain...
Awareness and acknowledgement of a higher authority have been shunted into the realm of magic and mysticism. The concept of a Creator or an Earth Mother who anchors us in the universe, not for ourselves alone but as an integral part of some higher self-perpetuating universal order, represents an affront to modern science and technology and gets in the way of arrogant human aspirations. But there must be a reason that we are living so much longer. What are we meant to do with all this leftover life? Surely we are not meant to regress into tribal warfare and cultural genocide.

Haval,'The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the Earth, and at the same time, the Cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence.'

Then on p. 146, Sheehy is talking about the ‘little death’ during the passage from early adulthood to second adulthood that occurs somewhere in the mid- to late 40’s. She states,

The effort expended in creating and defending that (early adulthood) persona is exhausting. Once we stop being ruled by the need to prove ourselves to the world and begin to relax our vigilance around maintaining our false self – what a relief – we can start stripping down to what is real, not false or copied, to uncover our own authenticity.

On p 161, Sheehy comments on ‘older’ women...
The same strong push toward authenticity appeared in my interviews with contemporary older women. By the time they reached their fifties, most educated women have acquired the skills and self-knowledge to master complex environments and change the conditions around them. The send of ‘being my own person’ is profound. They become increasingly the people they want to be.

p 153
But second adulthood is not about giving up or coasting until it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. It’s about finding new value in life. The secret in the search for meaning is to find your passion and pursue it.

p 169
In order to continue to enjoy life and be productive, it is particularly important at this stage to feel anchored in something. We need to know what is absolutely relevant about our lives. If we don’t know already, this is the time to work at finding out. It will provide a sense of direction and anchor.

And of course, it continues on. So if you're trying to understand where you are in your current 'life cycle' this book may help. After all, the sub-title is 'Mapping your life across time'. And that's just what it delivers, in a very readable and fascinating way. What you would expect from a woman whose mentor is Margaret Mead.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. And if you're keen, 'Understanding Men's Passages' is pretty enlightening, too.

Life Guiding Principles

These were billed as 'Secrets to Success', but I view them more as a guide for everyday life. They seem to re-iterate what I am trying to do in my life, so I've shared them here to inspire you as well ....

1. Pursue life with purpose.
2. Dream big dreams. Achieve them with realistic short-term goals.
3. Every moment counts so focus like a laser beam not a light bulb.
4. Take action now. You can't score if you don't aim and shoot.
5. Develop good habits. Exercise for a strong mind and body.
6. Have the courage to try - and the courage to try again.
7. Cultivate an attitude of success and success will follow.
8. Laugh long and loud. Laughter is brain food and soul food.
9. Live life with passion and bursting desire.
10. Immerse yourself in inspiration to keep your fire burning.

Xinran's story

For eight years, Xinran hosted an innovative call-in talk show for women in China, risking the wrath of the Communist Party. The first of it’s kind, her show Words on the Night Breeze won the trust of Chinese women, who told their stories to the nation for the first time. Here is her story of that time…

In 1989, Xinran changed the way evening radio was presented in China. In Words on the Night Breeze, her own radio show, Xinran discussed daily life in China – and received endless letters from women requesting her help. Discussing personal issues in the media was dangerous, but Xinran persisted regardless, feeling the dire need of her women listeners who were crying out for help. Fascinated and distressed by the stories that she read, Xinran made an official request to read some of the letters she received, during each program.

Six weeks later, Xinran’s request was accepted – on the condition that her readings only took ten minutes. Why such resistance ? Well, in 1983, after 40 years of internal strife, Chinese authorities began to ‘open up’ China. Until that time, the media was strictly controlled by the Communist Party. The only information available to the public was heavily censored and presented in identical monotones. This meant local officials had no power, and all requests were made to the Party. But Xinran persisted with her mission to gain an insight into the lives of everyday Chinese women, and changed the way radio was presented in the process.

The stories that Xinran heard were incredibly heartwrenching. Many stories were recorded on studio phones, by women who could not leave their names, for their personal safety. Xinran was forbidden to broadcast some stories – the truth was considered too dangerous or destructive by the Party. Through her compassion and persistence, Xinran touched the lives of many Chinese women, and was regarded as an inspiration.

One of the stories recorded by Xinran and outlined in her book The Good Women of China, is included below.

One particular woman (who could not state her name), told how women of her time were taught the ‘Three submissions and four virtues’:

• Submission to your father, then your husband, then your son; and
• The virtues of fidelity, physical charm, propriety in speech and action, and diligence in housework.

However, this woman was fortunate to be brought up by parents who had a broader view of society. But they were unable to stop her from joining the Revolution. A few months after she had joined the ranks, her outgoing personality was brought to the attention of Party officials. And on her eighteenth birthday they asked if she would like to join the Party.

She accepted with enthusiasm and was immediately given an unstated ‘mission to fulfill’. Two days later, her unknown ‘mission’ was accomplished, when she was married off to a Party official. This women told her story 40 years after her wedding day, still married to the same official. She cannot leave him for fear of retribution, and has neither love nor respect from her husband or children. Having concluded her story, this women said that she felt lighter as she had been able to speak out without fear.

It was stories such as these, and other cruelties and previously unheard truths, that Xinran's radio show brought out. Her show touched the lives of many women, who had lived in repression for decades and Xinran's radio show was their first and only outlet for their fear and frustration.

But the stories that Xinran heard through her radio show were often not allowed to be published. And her health suffered as a result of the conflict between what she knew and what she was permitted to say. So in 1997, Xinran moved to England to find out what it was like to live in a free society.

An inspired woman, Xinran continues to touch many women’s lives, and has saved more than one. Through her hard work, she has gained a significant public profile and extensive social network. Xinran continues to educate the western world about the mysteries of Chinese women's lives and culture and in doing so, bringing the east into the hearts of western women.

She is also the founder of The Mothers Bridge of Love (MBL), which strives to introduce an authentic China to the West and disseminate information about adopted Chinese children’s lives, and the lives of overseas Chinese in the West to people in China.

A poem for all women

This is a poem given to Hillary Clinton by a New Delhi (India) college woman and read by Hillary in her address to the Rajiv Gandi Foundation in New Delhi, India, 1996.

Send it to the women in your life. It's powerful !

Silence
by Anasuya Sengupta

Too many women in too many countries speak the same language – of silence.

My grandmother was always silent, always aggrieved, only her husband had the cosmic right (or so it was said) to speak and be heard.

They say it is different now, but sometimes I wonder.

When a woman gives her love, as most do, generously, it is accepted.

When a woman shares her thoughts, as some women do, graciously, it is allowed.

When a woman fights for power, as all women would like to, quietly or loudly, it is questioned, and yet, there must be freedom if we are allowed to speak. And yes, there must be power, if we are to be heard.

And when we have both (freedom and power), let us not be misunderstood.

Cathy Freeman's Story

"I'm just a little black girl who can run fast....."

From humble aboriginal beginnings in small-town Australia to winning the 400 m gold medal in front of her family at the Sydney Olympics, Cathy Freeman is a real inspiration.

While in grade school, Cathy started running track and won races from the very start. She also figured out (as kids do!) that winning races made adults happy and got her out of school classes. So when asked by a councilor what she wanted to do when she ‘grew up’ Cathy said she wanted to win an Olympic gold medal.

Now, many young athletes will say the same thing, but of course, not many achieve their stated goal. Some don’t have the talent, some lose their determination, and some follow other paths. But Cathy didn’t. She had the talent, she had the courage and she had the determination to make it happen – and she did, against many odds.

To start, funding was a perpetual battle. Cathy had to travel great distances (with the associated costs), just to compete as a teen. Getting coaching for any kid was difficult, and meant moving to the ‘big city’. Being aboriginal was a bit more of a challenge. But she rose to the challenge, moved to the city, changed schools, got some better coaching. And thrived on running and her Olympic dream.

An exchange trip to the USA in 1988 and subsequently meeting both Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner was a catalyst for Cathy. On her return to Australia and after just 6 months of good coaching, Cathy won a Commonwealth Games gold medal as part of Australia’s 4 x 100 m team. She was on her way to stardom….

In the background, but providing great moral support to their daughter/sister/cousin was Cathy’s incredibly strong mother, supportive step-father, a whole clan of Freeman’s and a sister who eventually passed away from cerebral palsy (CP). It was the passing of Cathy’s sister Anne-Marie, who couldn’t walk or speak due to CP, that fueled part of her running. Cathy’s wins were often attributed to Anne-Marie.

Cathy broke through many barriers during her track career. Not just in her running times on the track, but in her overall achievements. In 1990, Cathy won the Young Australian of the Year award – not an award generally provided to an aboriginal women. In 1992, at age 19, Cathy was the first Australian aboriginal to compete at an Olympic Games (in Barcelona). In 1994, you may remember when Cathy caused an international kerfuffle. She hoisted both the Aboriginal flag and the Australian flag above her head after winning the 400 m Commonwealth Games gold medal in Victoria, BC Canada. And in 1996, she was back at the Olympics, just missing a gold medal to her long-time French rival Marie-Jose Perec – a legend in her own right.

The speed of Cathy’s ascent through the pressure-cooker world of international track and field was nothing short of phenomenal. Her confidence that she could win was one of her greatest strengths, as well as her dedication and determination in reaching her goals. But this all came at a cost, as Cathy’s life off the track was not always easy.

Along the way, Cathy met and almost-married her first sweetheart, who not only coached her, but organized her business dealings as well. This arrangement worked well from their meeting in 1989 through the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 but subsequently broke down. Through the late 1990’s Cathy met and married an American business-man who was involved with Nike, but this relationship eventually ended as well, after her husbands bout with cancer, travel throughout Europe and living back and forth between Australia and the USA.

In 1998, Cathy Freeman broke another barrier. An aboriginal was the world’s fastest 400 m female runner. This foreshadowed what was to come, for in 1999, Cathy Freeman won the 400 m World Championships for a second time and had an Olympic medal in her sights. After putting in all the hard yards and battling through turmoil in her personal and professional relationships, 2000 was Cathy’s year to shine.

In 2000, Cathy became ‘Australia’s’ Cathy Freeman. She carried the flag for Australia’s Olympic Team, lit the Olympic cauldron and, yes, won the gold medal that she had said she would as a teenager, all those years ago. Cathy’s win in her special Nike track suit in front of her family and home crowd in Sydney, Australia, was nothing short of spectacular. For just a moment, Cathy brought Australia, as a country, together. And her win illustrated that the colour of one’s skin or racial background is irrelevant on the world’s stage. Quite an achievement for ‘a little black girl who can run fast…’ And what aninspiration to the rest of us.

You really can achieve your dream, if you dare to dream it and have the courage to pursue it.

Annie's Got A Gun ....

Here's a postcard that relatives in San Diego sent me... It's of Annie Oakley who was the subject of the song 'Annie's Got a Gun' by ?? (I'm terrible at band names). But you know the one - I'd sing the tune here but don't know how to do that (probably a good thing). But I digress...

Annie was apparently a fantastic shot in the days when it wasn't particularly lady-like to, well, be good with a gun. Anyway, in those days - circa 1860 to 1926 - being a good shot would certainly impress the boys. Which Annie sure did.

The postcard says that Annie was nicknamed 'Little Miss Sure Shot' and she travelled with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. As people of that era were impressed with a 'sure shot' thousands flocked to see her astounding show.... she even shot the cigarette from the mouth of Kaiser Wilhlm of Germany at one time.

So, there's a mentor woman for ya as well as a neat story and bit of history. Plus now when you hear that song by ??, you'll know who they're talking about:)

A Bottle of Wine (a very cute story!)

For everyone who is married, was married, wish they were married, or wish they weren't married, this is something to smile about the next time you open a bottle of wine….

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road. As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride. With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.

Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally…

"What's in the bag?" asked the old woman.

Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, "It's a bottle of wine; I got it for my husband."

The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two. Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said, "Good trade."

Queen of the Palm Pilot - Donna Dubinsky

Despite early and expensive industry failures, Donna Dubinksy gambled that consumers really did want a pocket-sized digital daytimer. She was right. Over 400,000 PalmPilots were sold in its debut year. This is Donna’s success story….

By 1996, Silicon Valley had spent nearly $1 billion trying to develop a handheld computer, and about all there was to show for it was a rather rotten Apple Newton. It seems basic now, but no one had made the logical leap that this organizer was a PC accessory, not a stand-alone PC.

Then along came Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins. Jeff glued together bits of mahogany and cardboard in his garage and transformed them into the first PalmPilot. Donna was excited to go out and sell the idea, even though bigger companies with deeper pockets had already spent about $1 billion developing PDAs like Apple's Newtons. But because of the history of the Apple Newton, the idea wasn't very salable. Basically, people were skeptical, and they just didn't buy it. Plus the timing was bad. The Internet had just taken off, and people were very excited about that, not about the potential of a PDA.

However, from the garage-built PalmPilot to it’s debut, Donna built up Palm Computing and turned the wooden experiment into one of the most successful consumer electronics product launches in history, selling 400,000 units during its 1996 debut.

Dubinsky repeated herself in 1998, when she and Hawkins left Palm Computing to start Handspring Inc. Donna was a brave entrepreneurially minded 47-year-old, ready to start anew. So Donna and Jeff left Palm Computing, took three days off, and then Jeff and Donna got together and said, 'Okay, what next?' And they started creating Handspring Inc.

Donna did the corporate things, like financing, finding office space, and negotiating with 3Com to license the Palm operating system. They were primed, but didn't have a product, so decided to focus on the low end of PDA’s and innovate there. They decided to create something low cost, familiar, but still new. Jeff made a list of the things he wanted the new device to do. Their newly engineered device enabled them to create a product that could become a phone, an MP3 player, a digital camera, and almost anything consumers might want.

Venturing out on their own paid off. By undercutting Palm's prices by as much as 30%, Handspring's Visor gained market share quickly, representing one out of every four personal digital assistants sold after just a year in business. Within 12 months Donna and Jeff were selling a differentiated product and captured 28% of the market with one of the first alternatives to a PalmPilot.

Has Donna’s success to date been solely due to technological advances? Unlikely. As the following interview by a leading business magazine shows, Donna has a very sharp business mind. Her management style obviously appeals to many employees and she has some great strengths that she brings to her business dealings. A Mentor Women indeed.

Interview with Donna Dubinsky

Donna: You have to be nimble. I doubt there's any entrepreneur who's succeeded on her original business plan. Situations change, the dynamic changes, the competitive environment changes, the technologies change.

You have to be able to adapt. You also have to be able to stop things. One of the disciplines I'm most proud of at Handspring is that we kill projects. That is so hard to do when people have invested their time and effort. And they're good projects. But you have to decide, hey, when we started, it made a lot of sense. Today, for whatever reason, it doesn't. We can't keep doing it just because it's got momentum.

To keep your edge, you also have to get everyone who works for you invested and involved. Luckily, building a culture like that is very natural to us. Everything we do is always challenging and asking questions and probing things and trying to understand what the best course of action is.

We do lots of management by walking around. I do these things called Dine With Donna, where I get groups of employees together -- sort of a group of a dozen or so -- and get wonderful information about what the real issues are and what's going on in the company. I also have lunch in the cafe almost every day. It sounds like a stupid little thing, but to me it's one of the most incredibly important things I do. I could go off and have big honcho business lunches, but I sit out in our cafe because I can be with different employees and be accessible. That philosophy of easy access permeates the entire company.

And with success like what she has had, it's easy to see that Donna's management practices and charisma have stood her in good stead.

Joan Bradley - Australian Conservationist Extraordinaire

Using her ecological savvy, Joan Bradley figured out how to restore large tracts of Australian bushland that have been ravaged by introduced species. A conservationist extraordinaire, this is Joan’s story…

The name Joan Bradley is synonymous with bush regeneration in Australia. First publicized in the 1960’s, the ‘Bradley Method’ of bush regeneration is still the most successful way to conserve Australian bush. But to understand Joan’s important contribution to science, you have to know a bit about the Australian bush.

The Australian bush is unique, as it’s located on an island continent, disconnected from the large ‘Gondwana’ landmass for millions of years. As such, the bush has developed in isolation, and many plant species are found only in Australia. These unique plant species support animals that are also unique to the Australian land mass. You don’t find kangaroos anywhere else, do you ??!

Also, the Australian climate is particularly harsh. Strong direct sunlight, vast deserts, both dry and wet rainforest areas, and even areas in the north where the Aborigines recognize six seasons (wet through dry and everything in between). So you can imagine how disruptive introduced plant species would be to the native bushland. They disrupt the delicate ecological balance between native vegetation and animal life, leading to declining native populations.

Unfortunately, Australia has many ‘weed’(non-native) plant species that are rampant, as well an introduced rabbits, foxes, wild cats, toads, goats, camels etc etc. And it’s these introduced species that decimate the native plant (and animal) species as well as change the native habitat so that the native species are unable to survive. To combat this effect, Australians face huge challenges controlling introduced species – particularly weeds. And it was here that Joan made her mark.

In the 1960, when women were not accepted in the scientific field, Joan doggedly experimented with bush regeneration. Using her extensive knowledge of Australian native bush and incredible work ethic, she trialed many methods of regeneration, trying to determine what would work best. Finally, after years of work, Joan developed and published the very successful Bradley Method of bush regeneration. It was Joan’s understanding of ecology, willingness to work hard, and exceptional patience, that were so notable. As restoring degraded areas of bush (forest) is not for the faint at heart. It is a daunting task that often defeats the most dedicated conservationists.

However, Joan figured out that native plants will re-grow after weeds are hand-cleared from small patches of bush. What a lot of hard work you say ! Yes, that is exactly the point. There are no shortcuts to Joan’s method, but….. it works. It works so well, that in 1976 the National Trust in New South Wales, Australia employed Joan to restore large tracts of bushland using her method.

Following Joan’s successes restoring larger tracts of bushland, government agencies and community groups recognized The Bradley Method as the best way to re-grow native bushlands. Their adherence to these principles continues today, proving how successful and well regarded the method has become.

Although Joan contributed immensely to conservational science in Australian, she was very well known for her cheerful and extroverted personality. And as you can well imagine, her motto of ‘slow and steady wins the race’ helped, too !

The mother of Mother's Day - Anna Jarvis

In 1907, long before feminism was even a word, Anna created Mother’s Day in the USA, to celebrate the importance of women and their work inside the home.

On May 10, 1907, the first Mother’s Day celebration was held at Anna Jarvis’s mother's church, St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, Virginia, USA.

Anna had gained recognition for the day by sheer determination and hard work. At a time when women were not granted equality or power outside the home, Anna wrote innumerable letters to influential people and distributed endless pamphlets to advertise her cause. Her strength of purpose was founded on inspiration by her deceased mother.

Mrs. Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis (Anna’s mother) had helped develop "Mothers Friendship Day" to assist in the healing of the USA after the Civil War. So after the death of her mother, Anna Jarvis dedicated her life to her mother's cause - establishing Mother's Day to "honor mothers, living and dead". At the original 'Mother's Day' ceremony, Anna passed out more than 500 white carnations, one for each mother in the congregation. A white carnation was worn to honor deceased mothers and a red one to honor a living mother. Anna chose the white carnation because to her, it represented the purity of a mother's heart.

With the encouragement and financial support of a Philadelphian philanthropist, the Mother’s Day movement grew. In 1912 West Virginia became the first state to adopt an official Mother's Day, and in 1914 a resolution signed by President Woodrow Wilson established Mother's Day throughout the USA. Despite the success of Mother’s Day celebrations, Anna was very concerned with the increasing commercialization of the day. Her holiday was meant to be a "noble and true" celebration, but Anna felt that it had been exploited for profit. However, the very involvement of Anna Jarvis and other female activists brought the role of mothers and homemakers into the public eye. And women gained positive exposure, acknowledgment, and public admiration.

The resolve and resilience of Anna Jarvis and her mother towards their causes and beliefs are truly inspiring. It is a great irony that the woman who worked so hard for recognition of all women couldn't become a mother herself. But through her work, Anna Jarvis earned the title of the "Mother of Mother's Day". A title as grand as her beautiful cause.

The HEART of Makybe Diva

Makybe Diva
Never heard of her? Maybe a four-legged animal doesn’t belong in these pages. But Makybe Diva is internationally renowned in horse-racing circles for her ‘heart’. She gave her all during her career - and soundly beat the boys in the process. Meet a legend….

On 1 November, 2005, Makybe Diva won the hearts of a nation...and galloped into history. With her ears out sideways and a glazed look in her eye as she dug deeper than she ever had in her life, she won the Melbourne Cup for a record third time in a row. It gave this spectator goose-bumps to see a horse try so hard.

On the first Tuesday of November at around 3pm local time, all of Australia pauses to watch one of the country's greatest sporting events, the Melbourne Cup race - 'the race that stops a nation'. The Melbourne Cup is the peak of the Spring Racing Carnival, held in Melbourne every year since 1861. The Cup is the southern hemispheres’ Kentucky Derby. It has become a date on the international horse-racing calendar too, with horses from Europe and Asia competing. The race attracts 130,000 spectators, and schools and workplaces across the country stop to watch.

In 1895 American author Mark Twain said ‘nowhere in the world have I encountered a festival of people that has such a magnificent appeal to the whole nation. The Cup astonishes me.’

But a bit about the Diva....
Makybe Diva was conceived in Irelend and born in Britain. She was taken to Australia after failing to attract any bids in England. Her new owner, Tony Santic, a South Australian tuna fisherman, asked five of his employees to help name her. They came up with her name by combining the first two letters of each of their first names - Maureen, Kylie, Belinda, Dianne and Vanessa. Hence Makybe Diva.

In 2003, Makybe Diva won her first Melbourne Cup, which is a difficult feat for any horse and less likely to be accomplished by a mare than a gelding or stallion.
In 2004, she won national acclaim by winning her second Melbourne Cup and beating the competitive Irish horse Vinnie Roe.

In 2005 despite being the punters' favourite for the Melbourne Cup, many Australians doubted that she would win again. It seemed too much to ask. At seven years old, she would be one of the oldest horses to win the Cup, if indeed she did. And no other horse had ever won the Cup three times in a row.

Adding to Australia’s sceptisicm was the footing of the racecourse. The Flemington Racecourse was wet in 2003 and 2004, and Makybe performed better on softer racecourses. In 2005, if the organisers hadn't made a controversial decision to water the racetrack at the last minute, the course would have been dry.

In 2005, the total prize money offered at the Carnival was AU$5.1 million (approximately £2 million). Over AU$200 million (approximately £79 million) worldwide bets were placed on the races over the four-day event - including an AU$1 million bet on Makybe Diva herself !

But Makybe Diva overcame all the scepticism and questions to win the Melbourne Cup for the third time in a row, an achievement that has never before occurred in the history of the race. All Australia stopped to watch, and the after-race parties went on for days.

Only two other seven-year-old mares have won the race in its entire history - Archer in 1861 and Acrasia in 1904. Makybe Diva is also the first horse since 1890 to win both the Sydney Cup and Melbourne Cup in the same year.

So what makes Makybe Diva so special? In one word, heart. She wins because she gives more than she has. Maykbe Diva has more determination to win than her competitors, and simply runs right by them. What an inspiration.