From Stud And Stable Foxola One Of N.Z.'s Foremost Producers

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29772, 15 March 1962, Page 4

From Stud And Stable Foxola One Of N.Z.'s Foremost Producers

Sons of Foxola have now earned more than £55,000 in stakes, and this Foxbridge mare is now well established as one of New Zealand's most successful producers. Marendallas improved the, Foxola record when he won at Pareroa last Saturday. This Ruthless gelding has not been the star of the family. In fact he is one of the more inconsistent open class performers in the north, but now and again he comes up with one of those performances that help to recall some of the notable deeds of his elder brothers a few years back.

Foxola was bred at Trelawney Stud and was raced by the late Mr E. Davis and Mr O. Nicholson. Under the direction of T. F. Verner, Foxola won many good races including the Auckland Racing Club Handicap and she also .an into a place in the Auckland Cup.

She won 13 races in all, five of them in succession, and earned £6475 in stakes when the top-liners were not getting the rich opportunities offering these days. Mr W. A. Stevenson, who has owned Foxola throughout her stud career, sent her first to Nizami, but her foal was dead.

Who knows? A Nizami colt from a Foxbridge mare of the class of Foxola could have joined Hiraji and Foxzami (two more sons of Nizami and Foxbridge mares) on the Melbourne Cup records. In 1948, Foxola foaled a brown Ruthless colt. This was Arawa, which won the Auckland Cup for Sir Ernest Davis as a six-year-old in 1954, his time of 3min 19 3-ssec being one of the fastest on record for the race. Takatu came a year after Arawa. He was a striking brown by Revelation and was one of the best of his time. For a time he was a recordholder for a mile and a half, achieved in a win at Trentham.

Caversham, by Gold Nib, was next. He was of little account, but did manage to win races in modest company in outback Victoria. Heir Apparent, a son of Faux Tirage, was useful without being very good, and earned £432o—quite good by general South Island standards.

But Copernicus, son of Oman, was better. He managed to win major handicaps at Ellerslie and Te Rapa, and earned £7955 in stakes. Marendallas has so .'ar earned £3905, and, being bred on such durable lines, he will almost certainly improve the record a good deal yet. Duffer Strangely, Foxola has had only one filly, and she was in the duffer class as a racing proposition. This was Vinola, a daughter of Balloch. Perhaps she will achieve some fame as a producer. Another of last Saturday’s winners bred on the RuthlessFoxbridge cross was the three-year-old Grand Coeur. He won the mile non-total-isator race at Trentham less than an hour before his close relation. To Reign, all but outclassed the others in the high-weight

Grand Coeur’s dam is Mild Flutter, a winner and dam of Swift Gold, which was a near miss as a topflight stayer, but was a steady earner with placings in valuable races like the Auckland Cup, and the two St. Legers. The Wellington Cup winner, Jalna, is closely related to Grand Coeur; so is Coral Flight, which was above average as a steeplechaser. Mild Flutter’s first filly foal was Swift Falcon (by Red Mars), which became the dam of the high-weight winner at Trentham last Saturday. Grand Coeur is trained at Awapuni by E. Temperton. and W. Winder trains To Reign at Te Rapa. Temperton must have found Saturday’s racing memorable, for he also saddled Ma Cherie and Bagush for wins on the programme. Overdue The ponified Ma Cherie astounded Australians with the ease of her win in the A.J.C. Epsom Handicap in Sydney in the spring of 1960, but she did little that was noteworthy between then and last Saturday, when she beat the stayers in the Autumn Handicap. She stiowed she could run out two miles when she won the same race two years ago, but for some time after her Australian campaign she was finding her weights just too much. Ma Cherie was Faux Tirage’s only representative in the Autumn Handicap, and Cool alone represented the Big Game horse in the Thompson Handicap, so the Okawa studmaster, Mr T. C. Lowry, might have participated in the big double dividend.

Mr Lowry paid a big price to secure Faux Tirage for his stud and it has been an important acquisition for the New Zealand bloodstock industry. Faux Tirage’s first topclass stayer was Straight Draw, which won the A.J.C. Metropolitan and Melbourne Cup in 1967 and the Sydney Cup later that same season in the autumn of 1958.

Stock of tiie imported sires did not altogether dominate

the scene at Trentham last week. Texarkana won the Railway Handicap to give his sire Hakiro a first major success.

Hakiro, now at stud at Port Waikato, near Tuakau, is by Massowa from the Vaals mare, Lady Adornment. He looked better than average in his first season of racing when he won three times, twice at Ellerslie. In one of his Ellerslie wins he beat Takatu, and in the other he outran Gendarme, so he had early successes against horses which developed into two of the best performers of their time.

Texarkana's dam is Miss California, a daughter of Moorcock and Miss Carolina.

Miss California (by Foxbridige) was one of the fillies bought by Mr D. H. Blackie when he was establishing a stud in the Waikato not long after World War H. Bagush, which beat the hack stayers at Trentham, is another with New Zealandborn parents. Bagush is a three-year-old by Lucky Cast from Oratoriurn. The dam is by Tauloch, a high-class performer for Mr W. S. Goosman.

Lucky Cast did not achieve greatness as a racehorse, but he ran many good races for his Manawatu owner, Mr M. Millar.

He is by Finis from Blue Trout, and was the first foal of that brilliant Robin Goodfellow mare, Blue Trout, whose winning gallop of 57 4-ssec in the Welcome Stakes at Riccarton in November, 1945, was not bettered in New Zealand until January 1 of this year.

Orokowa recorded 57 3-ssec when he won against the two-year-olds on the second day of the Wairarapa meeting. Incidentally, this recordbreaker is a stablemate of Bagush.