FROM STUD AND STABLE Golden Prince Could Give Dam Belated Fame

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 5

FROM STUD AND STABLE Golden Prince Could Give Dam Belated Fame

Golden Prince has already won more races than his dam, Miss Gilpin, won in her lifetime. But in the opinion of the Woodville trainer, E. Ropiha, who has prepared them both, Miss Gilpin could have gone to the top if she had been sound.

Miss Gilpin once beat the two staying stars, Gold Scheme and Lancaster, in a distance hack race at Trentham at odds of better than 20 to one and Ropiha rated her as the next best thing to a certainty!

The race was the Ruapehu Handicap, run on a wet day at Trentham in January, 1952. Gold Scheme was second, beaten by three-quarters of a length, and Lancaster was unplaced. Gold Scheme was to win the New Zealand St. Leger a few weeks later. Later he won the New Zealand and Sydney Cups. Miss Gilpin was sent to the stud two years later, but missed three times in four years and was not served in the other. In 1959 she foaled a chestnut filly by Knight’s Romance, but the youngster died. Two years later Miss Gilpin foaled the Knight’s Romance colt now know as Golden Prince, and this attractive chestnut could bring her belated fame as a producer. In everything he has done Golden Prince has looked much better than average, yet he still runs greenly in his races and J. T. Anderson takes no risks with him. Miss Gilpin, now 16 years old, was bred by Mr C. T. Keeble, an elderly bachelor who farms near Palmerston North. Mr Keeble has had much success with horses he placed with Ropiha. Three of them, Happy Warrior, John Gilpin and Lucky

Strike won a total of 45 races.

Judge, a good jumper in the Ropiha stable, carried the Keeble colours to victory in the Grand National Hurdles in 1957.

But it seems likely that Golden Prince will be the best of them all, and his holiday racing at Ellerslie should advance him a long way towards racing riches. New Reference

Those who favour the “horses for courses and time of the year” theory were able to add weight to the arguments when Beauzami and Palisade won two important races at the New Zealand Cup meeting. Both horses also won at the 1963 New Zealand Cup meeting.

A new reference book, Racing Information, has appeared to assist those who want a quick reference to the form, month by month, of horses racing in New Zealand last season.

The book lists in alphabetical order the horses which paid dividends at meetings throughout New Zealand during the 1963-64 season. It gives all the important information —the type of going, weight carried, and the distance and class of the race. One of the most interesting items in the publication is that 25 winners in August of 1963 had either won or were placed in August the year before. Success In U.S.

Four New Zealand horses now at stud in the United States were represented by two-year-old winners there during the present American season, statistics published in the “Thoroughbred Record” reveal.

Knave (by Faux Tirage— Trick), which won several races in Australia, has had four winners of eight races from his 14 two-year-olds to race. His stock earned 23,373 dollars in first moneys. The top class galloper, both in New Zealand and Australia. El Khobar (Gabador—

Gay Abandon), is represented by six winners from 17 starters.

Somerset Fair (Fair’s Fair —Diversion) and Aboukir II (Gold Nib—Egyptian Rose) have had two winners each from 12 and 11 starters respectively. Ambitious Plans The Adelaide trainer, J. B. Cummings, has ambitious plans for the champion filly Light Fingers. He said after the New Zealand-bred three-year-old had brilliantly won the Sandown Guineas at Caulfield on Saturday that her programme in the spring of next year would almost certainly include starts in the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups. Cummings has good reason to hope his stable houses the next big “cups” winner. Light Fingers scooped the pool in the events for three-year-old fillies at the recent Melbourne Cup carnival and now has a record of eight wins and three seconds from her 11 starts.

Light Fingers is already being hailed as Australia’s first lady of the turf and is rated at least the equal of Evening Peal which, after winning the Oaks in 1955, went on to run second in the Caulfield Cup and win the Melbourne Cup the following year.

Light Fingers, by Le Filou from Cuddlesome, is a sister to the A.J.C. Metropolitan winner The Dip and to Passionate, a stylish winner against the hack milers at Trentham last month. She has already won £ll,BOO in stakes for Mr W. Broderick, of Melbourne, by whom she is raced on lease from her New Zealand breeder Mr V. F. Dawson.

Because of her great value as a brood mare Mr Dawson refused to sell Light Fingers but he agreed to lease her to Mr Broderick for her racing career.