FROM STUD AND STABLE Trentham ’Chase Makes Heavy Demands

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 4

FROM STUD AND STABLE Trentham ’Chase Makes Heavy Demands

The horse than can keep belting along at 30 miles per hour through some of the most difficult ground in New Zealand and while jumping some 20 fences will win the Wellington Steplechase at Trentham on Saturday.

The Wellington Steeplechase winner will almost certainly be a solid stayer, not necessarily a spectacular jumper, but certainly a cever one.

It is a race that makes strenuous calls on the fitness of both horse and rider, and is a sharp and interesting contrast with the Great Northern and its three slogging runs over the hill; and with the Grand National with its tall fences and, usually, finnish footing placing a premium on jumping ability and speed. Strangely, two of the big fancies for the Wellington Steeples this year are horses that looked as if they could be written off late last winter.

A week after he won last year’s Wellington Steeplechase Braemar broke down in the Eric Riddiford Steeples. The break-down came pretty early in the race, and for the last mile and a half at least Braemar showed superb gameness under a near-crippling disability and plodded into fourth place. Slow Learner Once a Sydney Cup favourite, Braemar is a horse that showed no aptitude for jumping whatever when first tried, but perserverance at hunts and point-to-points paid off and the Cambridge-trained Balloch gelding is now a tradesmanlike jumper. Much

of the credit must go to Mr N. K. Batchelor, who races the Balloch gelding in partnership with Mr E. Montgomery.

Mr Montgomery paid a substantial four-figure price for Braemar as a yearling. He was so disappointed when the horse went wrong in Austradia that he wanted to make a gift of the horse to Mr Batchelor.

Mr Batchelor would accept only a half share, reminding Mr Montgomery what happened with another gift horse a few years earlier. Mr Montgomery found he had a duffer on the flat after paying 4000gns for Dunwbld, so he gave him to Mr JT. D. Kemp, who won two Great Northerns with him. Hely’s Skill Braemar has certainly earned Wellington Steeples favouritism after that battling run for hit close second to Johnny-Dee in this year’s Great Northern. Jim Hely, who rode Johnny Dee in Auckland, will be on Braemar on Saturday. Hely has .not yet won a Wellington Steeplechase but must feel he could hardly have a better mount to put the record to rights. One can be sure Hely will find the shortest route for the favourite, ’’’hey will be shaving every bend and will be on the inside panel all the way, and if everything depends on vigour in the

finish Braemar will be best served of all.

Racing, and steeplechasing in particular, abounds with colourful stories of horses that made good after being bought off the bargain counters, and horses that, made good after expensive failures on the flat.

Tadpole, the big Southland hope for the race, does not fit into either of those two categories, but few if anyone who saw him pull up lame after the Teschemaker Steeples at Washdyke last winter would have predicted the Hazlett jumper would have been a runner and a big fancy in this year’s Wellington Steeplechase. Checkered Career Tadpole had only two races as an eight-year-old and none the year before. He went wrong after a short programme in 1961, when he won over country at Invercargill and ran second to No Offence, to which he was attempting to give 191 b, in the Great Western at Riverton.

Tadpole is owned by Mr W. E. Hazlett, who has won three Grand Nationals, but not a Wellington Steeplechase. Paris, the Wellington Steeples winner in 1931, was owned by the late Mr W. T. Hazlett, father of Tadpole’s owner.

W. J. Hillis, who trains Tadpole, and will ride him, is an uncle of Brian Hillis, trainer-rider of the veteran Lochwood, which won this race two years ago. Brian Hillis came into racing several years after his

Riverton-based uncle, but he quickly caught up, and his record as a jockey takes some beating. When he was able to ride at a handy weight to have a selection of rides on the flat he won a New Zealand Cup on Great Scot. Since then he has won two Grand National Steeplechases on Dusky Prince a Grand National Hurdles on Armed, the Great Northern Hurdles this year on Smoke Ring, and the WellingtonRiddiford Steeples double two . years ago on Lochwood. Lochwood is now 12 years old. None nearly as old has won a Wellington Steeplechase in the last 30 years, but then again very few of that age run in the big crosscountry races these days. In this, an age demanding speed and more speed of steeplechasers, horses are put to jumping earlier, and very few of them are still active beyond the age of 10. Classic Winner Santa Claus, winner of the English and Irish Derbies, and now regarded as one of the best classic winners seen during the last 20 years, has now won £134,687 and is estimated to be worth . at least £500,000. His 38-year-old Irish trainer, Mick Rogers, has now won three Derbies. And what makes the training feat all the more remarkable is that Rogers has never yet had a string of 30 in training in any one season and that his two classic winners, Hard Ridden and Santa Claus, were both acquired at public auction for a total outlay of less than £lOOO. Rogers was Unimpressed by Santa Claus’s ability until he ran fifth in the Anglesey Stakes in Ireland a year ago. Since then he has never been beaten. Santa Claus has a serene temperament, says Rogers. “Nothing upsets him. His temperament is part of his greatness.” Asked after the Irish Derby how he accounted for the horse’s exceptional performances, Rogers replied: “He must have a bell of an engine wrapped up inside him.” Since the English Derby, English racing writers have written lots about the weak record of home-trained horses in'the English classics.

Ireland's successes in Britain, it is suggested, indicate a considerable inferiority in British training methods as compared with the Irish. Many of the horses which had been taken over from Ireland in recent years. to gather in a rich harvest of English prizes were bought at public auction with English bidders on level terms With those from Ireland in search of the champions. It Could be that top Irish judgment of a yearling’s potential was superior- to the British opinion, says one writer, but unless one granted clairvoyant powers to Irish buyers one must feel that the Irish success story unfolded fully at a later stage than the sale ring—in training.

This writer, an Englishman, comments: “Year after year the top flight of Irish trainers have been able to pull out horses to whip the best among the vastly greater numbej trained in Britain. The consistency with which Irish horses have been winning in Britain in recent years cannot be wholly explained by luck or even prescience at the sales. It definitely seems that English trainers would benefit by a course in the top Irish establishments.”