Champion mare Horlicks, the first New Zealand horse to win the Japan Cup, has died.

The grey mare, who produced Melbourne Cup winner Brew, was 28 when she died at Cambridge Stud on Wednesday.

She was buried at her owner-breeder Graham de Gruchy's Hawke's Bay property on Thursday.

Horlicks, by Three Legs out of Malt, won 17 of her 40 starts, chalking up six Group One victories in three countries.

She won both the million-dollar DB Draught Classic and the New Zealand Stakes twice.

In the spring of 1989 she won the weight-for-age Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington and followed it up three weeks later with the $3 million Japan Cup (2400m) in world record time for de Gruchy and trainers Dave and Paul O'Sullivan.

She was retired from racing the following year, with career earnings of $A3.2 million.

At stud she left 13 foals with Brew, the winner of the Melbourne Cup in 2000, the most notable.

One of her daughters, Latte, produced the 2007 AJC Australian Derby winner Fiumicino.