HORSES DESTROYED AT WASHDYKE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27665, 23 May 1955, Page 4

HORSES DESTROYED AT WASHDYKE

RIVERSTONE AND LORD FORT Lord Fort and Riverstone, two good winners for their respective owners, Mr J. A. C. Bain, Timaru, and Mr W. D. McLeod, Gore, were destroyed after being badly injured in their races at the South Canterbury Jockey Club’s autumn meeting at Washdyke on Saturday. Their combined stake winnings were more than £12,000. Lord Fort’s engagement was the Elloughton Handicap, a race he was attempting to win for the second successive year. He was leading when he broke a cannon bone near the home turn. A six-year-old gelding by Broiefort from Bayadeer, Lord Fort was bought as a yearling by Mr Bain, and won nine races and £9690 in stakes. Some of his notable successes were the Wellington Racing Club’s Nursery Handicap and the Canterbury Jockey Club’s Champagne Stakes as a two-year-old, the Ashburton John Grigg Stakes, the Canterbury Jockey Club’s Great Easter Handicap, and the Wellington Racing Club’s Telegraph and Shorts Handicaps. He won only two races last season, but carried big weights into minor places against New Zealand’s best sprinters in the Stewards’ Handicap and the Churchill Stakes at Riccarton, the Railway Handicap at Ellerslie, and the Telegraph, City, and Suburban Handicaps at Trentham. He

■ was trained throughout his career at • Washdyke by E. J. Ellis. • Riverstone broke a fetlock joint oh . landing over the first jump in the Levels i Hack Hurdles. He won five races and i £2780 for Mr McLeod. This was his best > season. He won the Lincoln Steeplechase and the Hunt Cup Steeplechase at the Grand National meeting last August, and was runner-up to Sentinel in the Riverton ; Great Western Steeplechase last month. i Official records have • been astray with the history of Riverstone. Volume XVI of the New Zealand Stud Book records that ; he died as a foal. The New Zealand Turf Registers for the 1951-52 and 1952-53 record that he was a four-year-old in : both seasons. Trained at Invercargill by D. V. Pankhurst, Riverstone was by Lo Zingaro from Stone Frigate, by Nightmarch. He was a half-brother to Mandeville .another good s Southland jumper.