Woman Who Picks Winners Does Not Bother To Be

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27441, 30 August 1954, Page 10

Woman Who Picks Winners Does Not Bother To Be

"The Press’* Special Service

WELLINGTON, August 39. A young woman facing statistician in Wellington is, as far .as is known, the only woman in New Zealand doinit such. work. She is Miss Patricia O Brien and though from time to time She picks a winner, she does not bet “I just haven’t got the gambling instinct, she explains. Miss O’Brien loves horses. During the day she works in the statistics department of a stock firm, compiling pedigrees of racehorses throughout the country. In the evenings—just to get away from horses’ histories—she reads about stallions and studs. As relaxation she likes other .reading. , Perhaps the biggest part of her work is the two months’ task of cataloguing the pedigrees of every horse to be sold at the annual yearling sales at Trentnam. About 400 are catalogued for each sale. She does this with Mr A. Before the sale, which is January, they comptie details of the yearlings and of their relatives for two or three generations. After printing, the catalogues are circulated to trainers and past buyers

throughout the. country. During ttt year about six smaller sales in ditto en _f (listricts are also catalogued. 4? Miss O’Brien also keeps the sires of winners, of jumpers m of brood mares—in fact almost b» thing one could wish to know aboUtl New Zealand racehorse. In the tai six months this year she has logued the pedigrees of 248 horses.» does about 500 in a year. r Miss O Brien’s work is not confin« to New Zealand horses. She Mt overseas racing publications stud® particularly Australian, EngM French and American horses. She did similar work for one yai for the Racing Calendar in Cbri» church before joining the stock m four years jgo. Before that shell § art-time work for the ThoroughbSl reeders’ Association and still doer a nttle statistical work for the assoebk tion. Miss O’Brien’s deep love of hofHB a 2 d V * or the work she wtt offered led her to leave her positiM as . a .. librarian in Auckland, specialised in research at the libwttr and this gave me a good grounding for my present work,” she said. I good memory for names was essentifl for her present work.