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RACING Ilumquh Has Chance To Make Amends In Cup

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, January 17. w Trainers of several horses engaged in the Wellington Gup tomorrow feel that their chances of beating Ilumquh will be slight if weights have the most important bearing on the result.

Ilumquh has 9-0, two pounds more than he carried when an unlucky second in the last Melbourne Cup. A rise of only two pounds for a placing so meritorious and valuable appears to have given the brilliant Woodville gelding a wonderful chance of making amends for disappointments and setbacks in a checkered career.

Ilumquh has never won at two miles but showed he was clearly a master of that distance at his first try. That was in the Centenary Melbourne Cup in 1960, when he was a close and unlucky third behind Hi-Jinx and Howsie.

• Since then he has hardly been free of trouble and his Woodville trainer, Eric Ropiha, would have hardly persevered with him Only for his conviction that fhe horse had the qualities of a champion. By most standards Ilumquh feces tomorrow’s race on a fight preparation, but Ropiha is a master at having his fiorses right precisely at the right time. ; Ilumquh pleased his trainer in his final gallop yesterday. He went further, yet letter than Baloo, and pulled f.p sound. ■ The trouble that plagued him almost from the time of his arrival in Melbourne last Joring has disappeared and fhat has raised hopes in his Camp that a brilliant performer will go out of racing with a Wellington Cup victory on record. • Like that remarkable veteran, Great Sensation, Ilumquh has not had the racing

of many horses half his age. He has started in only 22 races in New Zealand and 12 in Australia. Like many other top stayers he has not raced as a two-year-old, and he was also away from racing when he was six. He has won £5280 in New Zealand and £18,050 in Australia, where he had three victories including the Caulfield and Williamstown Cups the year of his unlucky third in the Centenary Melbourne Cup. The Riccartain-trained Gay Filou has come through his cup preparation to the satisfaction of his trainer, I. McClure. It will not be surprising if the rangy six-year-old starts favourite. He impressed northerners with the ease of his win on the second day of the Pahiatua meeting and Aucklanders remember him on a rather unlucky Auckland Cup campaign just over a year ago.

They remember his fourth when hopelessly blocked for a run in Stipulate’s Auckland Cup and his terrific run for third behind Stipulate and Even Stevens in the weight-for-age Clifford Plate. Senor, the latest Auckland Cup winner, has the record book against him. Even Stipulate could not win the Auckland and Wellington Cups in one season, and he was in brilliant form this time last year. However, Senor is in a better place in the weights to write a new chapter into the records of the race.

G. R. Edge, who rode Senor brilliantly in the Auckland Cup, is unable to take the mount this time, because of an injured knee. Today K. S. Cullen was making efforts to be released from his engagement for Sirrom to ride Senor. Gold Ruth and Richetta were scratched today for the Wellington Cup, and Expedite was withdrawn from the Telegraph Handicap, the second leg of the T.A.B. double. J. F. Grylls replaces J. P. Hayes as Bonnie Dee’s rider in the Telegraph Handicap.

Garden Place, one of the early favourites for the Anniversary Handicap, will be ridden by the successful light-weight, B. F. Andrews. The weather was fine at Trentham today and the track should be in perfect order.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19640118.2.31

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 4

Word Count
619

RACING Ilumquh Has Chance To Make Amends In Cup Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 4

RACING Ilumquh Has Chance To Make Amends In Cup Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 4