Better Loosen Up (foaled 29 August 1985 – died 15 March 2016) was an Australian Thoroughbred racehorse that won the Japan Cup in 1990 and was named Australia's champion racehorse in 1991. He campaigned from two to seven years of age, and won 17 of his 45 starts, including eight Group One races. In 2004, he was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. Better Loosen Up was a small bay gelding, by Loosen Up (USA) out of Better Fantasy by Better Boy (IRE). He was bred by Howard Martin and foaled in Berrigan, New South Wales. Loosen Up won the French Prix de l' Avre and was the sire of six stakes-winners in Australia with Better Loosen Up being the best one. Better Fantasy was the dam of 13 named foals, but Better Loosen Up was her only stakes-winner. Racing career Under the care of Les Theodore, won one of his four starts as two-year-old, a maiden at Bendigo on 28 April 1988. At three, he was transferred to the Sydney stables of Bart Cummings, where he won four races and was runner-up in the Canterbury Guineas. At season's end, his record stood at a relatively unprepossessing five wins from 16 starts, although Les Theodore claims to have told the staff at Lindsay Park that the horse was a 'champion'. Now trained by Colin Hayes, Better Loosen Up resumed late in the spring of 1989, on Caulfield Cup day, with a close second, and finished the year with three Group One wins in as many starts, in the Honda Stakes, the Winfield Stakes, and the Railway Stakes. In the new year, he defeated Super Impose and Vo Rogue in the Blamey and the Segenhoe Stakes, and was runner-up to Vo Rogue in the Australian Cup in between. In his final starts for the season, he was defeated by Sydeston on heavy tracks in the Mercedes Classic and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. At five, under the care of David Hayes (Colin Hayes had retired at the end of the 1989–1990 season), Better Loosen Up was better again. After a first-up defeat in the Liston Stakes, he was undefeated for the rest of the season, and, in successive races, took out the Feehan Stakes, the Turnbull Stakes, the Cox Plate, the Mackinnon Stakes, the Japan Cup, and, in the new year, the Blamey Stakes and the Australian Cup. In the Cox