Outstanding 1990s galloper Rough Habit, a New Zealand horse who became a cult hero in Queensland, is dead at the age of 28.

The winner of nearly $NZ5.2 million was euthanised at his retirement home of Cambridge Thoroughbred Lodge, where he has starred in horse shows for the last 15 years, Lodge manager Lee Somervell said.

"He's been in great shape until the last four months or so, when he lost the sight in one eye and was having feet trouble," Somervell told NZ Newswire on Friday.

"We hated to see him suffer so he was euthanised earlier today. We've just buried him and there's been a few tears this morning."

By Roughcast out of Certain Habit - both of which never won races - and bred by Isabell Roddick in Hawke's Bay, Rough Habit won 29 races from the New Plymouth stable of John Wheeler.

He won Group One races in New Zealand, Sydney and Melbourne, where he was also a narrow second to fellow Kiwi Solvit in the 1994 Cox Plate.

But he had a spectacular record in Queensland, where he won six of his 11 Group One races - the Queensland Derby, three Doomben Cups and two Stradbroke Handicaps.

His second Stradbroke Handicap in 1992 was arguably his greatest performance, where he came from last on the turn under topweight to hit the front close to the finish. He won his final race, the Group Two O'Shea Stakes, as an eight-year-old in Queensland.

Rough Habit had a bar at Eagle Farm racecourse in Brisbane named after him, along with a Group Three race, the Rough Habit Plate for three-year-olds, at Doomben racecourse.

He was New Zealand Horse of the Year in 1992 and 1995 and inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame in 2012.

The gelding has spent the last 15 years at Cambridge Thoroughbred Lodge, where he has regularly starred in the Horse Magic show, walking into the ring for spectators while wearing the Wheeler stable colours.

His health has been good enough that he went back to Queensland in 2011 at the age of 24 to lead the field out for the Stradbroke Handicap.