AJAX'S SEQUENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 116, 12 November 1938, Page 24

AJAX'S SEQUENCE

With '14 successive wins, Ajax has equalled Phar Lap's best sequence. Only Gloaming: and Desert Gold, with 19 successive wins in their records, remain above •him among Australian and New Zealand racehorses. If Defaulter had not missed that sprint at Dunedin he would have had a line of 13 successive wins still unbroken.

mated with Rey de Oro, and the foal was Morello, who was born at Amberley on Mr. Lawrence's station, from which he has since retired to live in

Christchurch. From the day he was born, eight years ago, Morello was a pet of Mrs. Lawrence's, who hand-reared the colt. From the first, Mr. Lawrence had confidence in Morello making good, and when War Buoy, in a sensational" sequence of successes, beat Morello eight times, his owner was still not prepared to admit that War Buoy was better than his own horse.

"And others also had a high opinion of him," Mr. Lawrence relates., "I had several tempting offers for him, including one of £800 from the late Mrs. M. Harrall, the owner of Red Shadow, but I would not part with him, not only because of sentimental family reasons, but because I was hoping for the day when he would meet War Buoy off the same mark in a two-mile race" By his run of successes War Buoy had moved out of Morello's class, but the meeting came in this year's Cup, and the result was as I always believed it would be. War Buoy was beaten by Morello off the same mark.' TRIBUTE TO -TRAINER. If M. C. McTigue, the Methven trainer and driver, had had Morello from the start of his racing career, War Buoy would never have beaten him, Mr. Lawrence believes. Two years ago, Morello was apparently gone in the wind, was merely skin and bone, and had to be fired three times. That he was able to race again and to go on to win the New Zealand Cup was evidence of the ability of McTigue., By his methods McTigue had recondi-' tioned a sadly broken-down horse. | Good manners are possessed by) Morello, who since he started racing has not once stood on the mark. In I a race, too, he is an easy horse to drive, pacing in whatever position his reinsman desires.

Mr. Lawrence has only twice had a runner in the New Zealand Trotting Cup. His other candidate was' Alto Chimes, who failed in 1924, the year in which Sheik beat Great Hope and Taraire. In his early racing days, however, he won the first Auckland Cup, when it was named the Newmarket Handicap, with Pygmalion, who was driven by Dave Price.