For Ilumquh Say “Willie”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29272, 2 August 1960, Page 4

For Ilumquh Say “Willie”

(N.Z. Press

MELBOURNE, July 31. Anyone who has heard Australian racegoers struggling with the strange syllables of some New Zealand-named racehorses will sympathise. Australians have never been able to get their tongues easily around the names of such familiar horses as Tawhlao, Yahabeebe and Ngaruawahia. They are now told that the name of the latest arrival from New Zealand, the Melbourne Cup hope, Ilumquh, is Southern Arabian. And even after a telephone call to the horse’s owner at Masterton, the Melbourne “Sun” was unable to give its readers a definite pronunciation. In Melbourne, where the horse arrived on Wednesday, the “Sun” asked the horse’s trainer, Eric Ropiha, He pronounced the name “Illonk.” In a story beside a five-eolumn, page-depth picture of Ilumquh and his, trainer on yesterday morning’s front page, the “Sun” said: “As the name sounded a bit off-key we telephoned the horse’s

stable last night for an academic check with the owner, Mr Alister Williams. “Mr Williams said through a very clear trans-Tasman radio beam: ‘Frankly, I have just no idea what the correct pronuncia-, tion is. Nor has anyone else here. But I call him Illomkar.” And if it was not satisfied with those two pronunciations Mr Williams gave the “Sun” the version of the stable hands at Masterton: “They found it a bit difficult to get their tongue around the name so here we call Ilumquh ‘Willie.’ “He is named after the moon god worshipped by the ancient Sabaean race of Southern Arabia.” The Melbourne “Herald” columnist E. W. Tipping offered two horses named “Willie” and “Joe” as a tip for the CaulfieldMelbourne Cups double. Tiping said: “Willie is the stable nickname for Ilumquh (pronounced ‘lloonk,’ if you happen to know how to pronounce ‘Iloonk’) and Joe. That’s Tulloch, the name the champ answers to around the Tommy Smith establishment.”