Moy Tipped For Queen Elizabeth Handicap

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 4

Moy Tipped For Queen Elizabeth Handicap

Moy, one of New Zealand’s most brilliant and most versatile race mares, may lead the field home in the £4OOO Queen Elizabeth Handicap, the first leg of the Canterbury Jockey Club’s double at Riccarton on Saturday.

A win for Moy would give her Hastings trainer, K. Couper, an unusual record. Couper received congraulations from toe Queen in 1953 when he prepared Coaltown to win toe Royal Auckland Cup.

Since then toe Couper stable has had some good winners, but none as good as Moy, and none better fitted to meet the demands of a testing race on Saturday.

Moy has 8-10 in toe Queen Elizabeth Handicap and is the only runner weighted within 261 b of the champion stayer, Great Sensation.

Great Sensation has to give Moy 151 b which sets him a formidable task.

If it had been tiwo miles, Great Sensation, with all his weight, might have had a pronounced advantage. But a mile, and a half would appear to have a levelling effect, and some horses without pretentions to greatness or even competence at two miles should be stronger contenders in the shorter race. Moy has a combination of

brilliance and ability to run a middle distance, and she has achieved much with those talents.

This season she has won two weight-for-qge races over middle distances—toe Harcourt Stakes at Trentoam and toe Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa.

More recently she has recorded a third behind Stipulate and Key in toe weight-for-age Trentoam Stakes and a second close behind Gold Ruth in toe Wellington Racing Club’s Summer Handicap. With average luck she would have beaten Gold Ruth.

Great Sensation has met Moy once this season—in the Trentoam Stakes.

That was one of Great Sensation’s weakest races, and one the veteran’s ownertrainer, Mr D. W. Brown would like to forget. Great Sensation finished last, and it was the first time in 18 starts he had failed to weigh in.

lit was disappointing after his thrilling Wellington Cup win a week earlier, but the danger signs were there to see when the old Cassock gelding went down “short” in his preliminary.

"The hard track bad him beaten from toe start,” his rider, R. J, Skelton, reported afterwards.

Remarkable Veteran

This time Great Sensation will have a track which will show his galloping ability to best advantage and if he produces one of his best runs, the Queen may leave New Zealand with a memory of a remarkable veteran—probably fit to rank with the best stayers anywhere.

There is a strong group of form runners just below 8-0.

Determined, from Otaki, won middle-distance races at the Ashhurst and Pahiatua meetings last month.

Gay Filou has been probably the unluckiest runner of the big cup races this season.

He had a wretched run in toe Auckland Cup, yet managed to finish fourth.

But he could not recover from two serious checks dose to home in the Wellington Cup, and was virtually out of toe race three furlongs out.

Two days later he ran fifth in the WJIC. Summer Handicap, and then be was

brought back to Riccarton to be prepared flor this race. Another fifth placing at Trentoam to attract attention was Windvale Lad’s performance in the Wellington Racing Club Handicap on the third day.

This South Canterbury stayer gained recognition against the best because of his deeds on soft' and heavy tracks. But his ownertrainer, Mr C. T. Stewart, feds that his Booby Trap gelding will yet win a good race against the summer performers; and after that fifth at Tretnham, this does not appear to be a vain hope. Riccarton Winner Gay Defoe also cornea from South Canterbury but, unlike Windvale Lad, he is a top-of-toe-ground performer.

He won the Handicap, one mile and a half, at Riccarton last November. and has since won a middle distance race at Tauherenikau; but his standard of performance dropped away at the Wellington Cup meeting.

My Contact and Sybeau, both from Cambridge, have been racing well, but success has eluded them for some time.

My Contact has had 10 races since his last win, which was over 11 furlongs at the Cambridge meeting on November 10. But he has kept his record moving with minor placings, some of them in strong metropolitan fields.

Sybeau came to attention at Trenthaim last July with two wins against hacks in the mud. Lately he has performed promisingly if without reward on summer ground and shapes as if he wip find a mile and a half on the big Riccarton course to his liking.

Picright, winner of the CJ.C. Fendalton Handicap, one mile and a quarter, in November, and two country cups since, has eome back to his best, it seems, since his race at Ashburton. He should be one of the best of the local representatives.

Otago’s best will probably be Irrepressible, a stronglyfinisbing first in the Gore Cup last week.

She has won at a mile and a half, and has performed well as a sprinter. She is just as versatile as far as track conditions ire concerned.