FROM STUD AND STABLE CUP WINNER’S DAM WAS BOUGHT CHEAPLY HERE

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30642, 7 January 1965, Page 4

FROM STUD AND STABLE CUP WINNER’S DAM WAS BOUGHT CHEAPLY HERE

Mr J. K. Boon, of Leeston, went to the trots at Addington last Friday. But shortly after 130 p.m. he wished he had gone to Ellerslie.

Mr Boon bred Lucky Son, which, early last Friday afternoon won New Zealand’s richest race in the colours of Mr B. Brown, a regular “client” for foals Mr Boon breeds from the Croupier mare, Penfold.

Thoughts of breeding an Auckland Cup winner were far from Mr Boon’s mind when he paid 200gns for Penfold soon after she was passed in at auction at the Grand National bloodstock sale in Christchurch in 1949.

Penfold was one of two brood mares offered on account of the late Mr J. S. Johnson, of Orari. Mr Boon liked the mare’s looks, and his interest grew because she was by Croupier and was in foal to Hello Peter. The foal Penfold was carrying was Pevensey, which became the dam of J. S. Shaw’s useful sprinter, Newbrook. But Mr Boon’s interest in

the family was given an earlier lift when he saw Penfold’s first produce, Lady Claret, run away from a field of hack sprinters at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s autumn meeting a few weeks after he bought the dam. Good Start

Lady Claret (by Lord Bobs) did not achieve ranking anything like Lucky Son has done. But she astonished a crowd of Riccarton racegoers one wet autumn afternoon in 1950 when she won a seven-furlong hack race at Riccarton by 10 lengths from the favourite, Te Kooti. Lady Claret was trained at

Invercargill by F. W. Ellis, who made some notable autumn raids on Riccarton, usually after racing just beforehand at Riverton. Notable Firsts

Lucky Son was the produce of Penfold’s first mating with Isaac erf York. He recorded another notable first by winning first time out at Gore in the hands of the Riccarton rider, G. W. Mein. When he won his second race at his next start a fortnight later he was ridden by W. D. Skelton, who prepared him for and rode him so well in the Auckland Cup last week.

In that race, the Dunedin Jockey Club’s St Kilda Improvers’ Handicap, Lucky Son cleared out and won by five lengths from Woodcock. After Pevensey came Master Penfold, Believe Me, and Mighty Son, all sired by Kiaree. Believe Me first raised Mr Brown’s hopes of winning an Auckland Cup winner. He won several races in the Brown colours after fracturing a sesamoid bone. He was a master of the worst winter track conditions, but his Wingatui owner also believed he would have been hard to beat against the summer performers in a race like the Auckland Cup if he had remained sound.

In winning five races in succession in the winter of 1963, Lucky Son shaped like an outstanding Winter Cup prospect, but he went amiss before the Riccarton carnival and did not start there.

Lucky Son managed only one win as a four-year-old last season, showing little of the form that was to have given him New Zealand-wide fame and ranking this season.

Lucky Son’s sire, Isaac of York, was bred in England in 1940 by the famous Hyperion, a winner of the English Derby and St Leger and six times premier sire of England. Cora Deans, the dam of Isaac of York, was by Coronach (son of Hurry On) from Jennie Deans, by Buchan. Lucky Son’s dam, Penfold, was bred in 1942 by Croupier (son of Surveyor) from Muriet by Lord Warden (son of Hurry On) from Murihiku by Sunny Lake from Arai-te-Uru by Birkenhead from Fair Nell by Apremont from the imported Idalia. Penfold’s only live foal since Lucky Son is the Dogger Bank gelding, Killinchy. Now three years old, Killinchy has been lightly raced by Mr Brown. A Dogger Bank filly foaled in 1960 died; so did a General Argosy filly foaled in 1956, so Mr Brown is setting great store by Mighty Coral, Penfold’s 1957 filly, to keep the family line alive.

Mightly Coral was bred by Coral Arc.

The half-brothers, Waipari and Aro have been other successful representatives of this branch of the family in the last few years. With better fortune in the Auckland Cup running, Aro might have brought it even greater credit.