Eats Zoo Lions Missed

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 205, 30 August 1941, Page 4 (Supplement)

Eats Zoo Lions Missed

Hunt Cup Winner Just Dodged Trip Out To Grey Lynn

"Nine out of ten owners racing horses to-day would have put Clansman away years ago. I didn't do that, but 12 months ago, after he had broken down in the Hunt Cup at Ellerslie, / practically decided to have him sent to the lions at the Zoo. Somehow he was saved from that fate, and to-day he wins the Hunt Cup for me."

THUS Mr. F. J. Punch, after his horse Clansman had outjumped and outpaced the field in the £600 race at Ellerslie on Saturday. And besides the money, £350 to the winner, there was a very nice cup valued at £25 for the owner. There was this also—Mr. Punch was not at all keen on having his jumper at the meeting. It was only because a brother "talked him into" starting Clansman that the horse goes down among the long list of winners of the Hunt Cup. But racing is like that—full of surprises, not always with such happy results as entered up on this occasion.

As a racehorse, Clansman had certainly never given his owner any great encouragement to believe that his banking account would swell— quite the reverse, in fact, because, as Mr. Punch himself says, few owners would have gone on with the son of Vaals and Judy Kelly.

Clansman was bred by the Misses Edwards at Mardella Stud, and when secured by Mr. Punch he was placed in J. Buchanan's stable at Ellerslie. The gelding did not race at two years, and as a three-year-old only started once, while at four years he again was not presented with the colours up. He had certainly not been over-raced.

As a five-year-old he found his job more strenuous and faced the starter on six occasions, but failed to win a race, although he held out hopes when, at his final start at that age,

he finished second in the Tamaki Steeplechase, won by Floodlight at the Great Northern meeting.

The hopes were to be short lived, because two months later, at the Pakuranga meeting, he broke down badly in the Hunt Cup, and it was then that Mr. Punch decided the gelding would be more appreciated by the lions.

But Fate ordained otherwise. Clansman didn't go to the Zoo, for some reason or other, and eventually found himself turned out in a paddock on this owner's place at Ohakune. Given up as a bad job, he just ate the grass and strode around the paddock killing time. A few months later the owner, in watching the gelding moving about, came to the conclusion that he was quite sound again. Far from optimistic, Mr. Punch decided to give him "just one more go" and passed him along to trainer Alf Cox at Te Aroha.

That was just six months ago. Since then Clansman has started eight times for two wins, one second and one third. In each of his unsuccessful runs he has failed to complete the course. Since Alf Cox has been training the gelding, he has returned a dividend each time he has finished the trip.

So much for Clansman, winner of the 1941 Pakuranga Hunt Cup, a horse who just missed being the entree on the menu provided the lions.