RACING Shipmate May Succee Where Dam Failed

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30540, 8 September 1964, Page 4

RACING Shipmate May Succee Where Dam Failed

The John Grigg Stakes at Ashburton on Saturday gives Shipmate a strong chance of succeeding where his dam, Hush Money, failed 10 years ago—a chance to start his three-year-old racing with a win.

Hush Money found Russleigh, Slogan, and Magic Carpet too strong for her at seven furlongs in the 1954 John Grigg Stakes. But her deeds later that season, and again when she was four, stamped her as a top-class performer at six furlongs.

After her fourth in the John Grigg Stakes, Hush Money was prepared for the Shorts Handicap at Trentham, and she won this race brilliantly In the hands of N. Eastwood.

That run made her favourite for the Desert Gold Stakes, but she ran much too keenly to last out a tough Trentham mile, and she finished out of the money. It was a different matter, though, when she was switched back to six furlongs again. She got that chance in the C.J.C. Stewards’ Handicap, run on the second day of the 1954 New Zealand Cup meeting. Carrying 7-13, which, incidentally, was second top weight. Hush Money proved too elusive for Mighty Dollar and the top weight Clinker. Trentham Win The next start for Mr A. N. Smith’s brilliant Faux Tirage filly was in the Wellington Stakes. She was a dominating favourite. and came up with a performance to match such confident backing, winning easily from Coleridge, then a two-year-old. which was to win this race just as easily a year later. Hush Money finished her three-year-old racing with a record of three firsts, and one fourth from seven starts. Her earnings at that age were £3760. It was a fairly light secondseason programme, but she had more racing than Ship-

mate at two years for which her record was three firsts, four seconds, and one fourth from nine starts. Hush Money earned £2460 in her first season. She was rather unlucky not to win the Wellesley Stakes at Trentham as well, and a victory there would have made a substantial addition to her earnings. Beaten Once Shipmate raced only five times last season and fashioned the excellent record of four wins and a fourth. But for a soft track the dav he ran fourth in the W. R. C. Wakefield Challenge Stakes, he might have come through his first season unbeaten. As it was his performances gained him high ranking, and his earnings of £2130 gave his career a very good start. Shipmate’s three-year-old spring racing will probably run more along the lines of the programmes followed with Braganza and Cadiz in 1958 and 1959 respectively. These two speedsters won the John Grigg Stakes and the Dunedin Guineas for Mr A. N. Smith.

Braganza was. then prepared for the New Zealand Derby, and failed, and it was as a miler that he won next, in the autumn of that season. After Cadiz won the Dunedin Guineas a year later he was twice beaten at Trentham —by Lord Sasanof in the Wellington Guineas and by Reefer in the Nainai Handicap, hut he showed he was a mighty

sprinter on a firm fast track shortly after when he outclassed 14 others in the C.J.C. Stewards’ Handicap to become the first three-year-old winner of the race since Hush Money. Like Hush Money again, Cadiz won the Wellington Stakes as a three-year-old and added the Jackson Stakes at Wanganui before being beaten by Karina, already an old rival, in the North Island Challenge Stakes.