TROTTING Trainer’s Big Team For Classic Racing

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30823, 7 August 1965, Page 7

TROTTING Trainer’s Big Team For Classic Racing

The Prebbleton trainer, D. P. Grice, could have a big say in the decision of classic races throughout New Zealand this season. Courtier and Have Care will be two of his main hopes in events for three-year-olds, while he has eight two-year-olds in various stages of education.

Two-year-olds which show an aptitude for early racing will be kept going by Grice, but their numbers will be greatly whittled down before long.

Courtier is expected to be one of the tallest three-year-olds of the season. He has grown a lot since he started racing and must stand more than 16 hands. His main mission will be the New Zealand Derby Stakes in November.

Courtier has not been idle since he failed to begin cleanly in the New Zealand Sapling Stakes at Ashburton and he has had plenty of jogging. He looks in great heart to start the new season. He has been entered for a race at the national meeting later in the month, but it remains to be seen whether he will be produced. Have Care, as well as being prepared for other restricted age events, has the New Zealand Oaks as her main mission in the first half of the season. Have Care won impressively at her first race start, but she subsequently went amiss. She had one further start, finishing eighth in the New Zealand Sapling Stakes. Hazard, an entry for the maiden event at Addington, and Syncom. winner of the T. S. Harrison Three-year-old Stakes at Methven last spring, are also in work. Syncom may start in the race for four-year-olds at the national meeting. Hazard showed great promise in a restricted career towards the end of the season. She was runner-up to Queensway at the Kurow meeting in May and but for racing greenly, she would have run the winner to a much closer decision. Hazard is by Brahman from the U. Scott mare, Petro Star, so it is not surprising that she has ability . Syncom. a difficult young pacer to keep sound, has ability above average. If he

stands up to racing, he could be a big winner later on. A three-year-old gelding by Brahman from a brilliant juvenile pacer in Riviera, a sister to Petro Star, is also in work. He will probably contest a qualifying trial early in the season. The two-year-olds are certain to arouse considerable interest when they are paraded at trials. Most of them are out of fine winner-producing mares, or from mares which were themselves outstanding race performers. A colt and a filly are by last season’s leading sire of two-year-olds, the Adios horse, Thurber Frost. They are from Thurber Frost’s second New Zealand crop. The colt is out of Shyness, an unraced daughter of U. Scott and the dual New Zealand Cup winner, Haughty, while the filly is the first foal of Mystic Star, a daughter of Brahman and Petro Star. Mystic Star was a useful winner herself and she is a member of a family which has been a consistent producer of winners for the Grice family. A filly by Brahman from Solar is a half-sister to a New Zealand Sapling Stakes winner in Jonboy Star, while a gelding by Brahman from Ceremonial is a first foal. The Brahman gelding’s dam is a daughter of a classic winner in Tradition, a sister to Haughty. Tradition left another good winner in Highland Custom, as well as the smart juvenile, Courtier. A filly by Morano from Prudent is a sister to Have Care and Monapat. A gelding by Brahman from Petro Star is being educated at the trotting gait, while a gelding by Brahman from Astrol favours the trotting gait. The dams of the eight two-year-olds will all go to the stud again this spring. In addition there will be three other brood mares.

Tradition has at present a colt by Morano, while Highland Custom has a colt by Brahman. Ruling Caste will be going to the stud for the first time.. She is a seven-year-old w'are by Brahman from Riviera. She showed considerable ability at times in her races, but did not graduate as far as expected through the classes.