FROM STUD AND STABLE Stayers Wear Well Because They Start Late

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31029, 7 April 1966, Page 5

FROM STUD AND STABLE Stayers Wear Well Because They Start Late

Breed to stout staying lines, and give your horses time.

That pretty well sums up the policy of the majority of South Island private breeders, and the results have made all the careful selection and patience well worth while.

The present season ’ has produced another | rich crop of South IsI land stayers, and the appearance of several I of them will focus New ■ Zealand-wide interest | on major races at the Canterbury Jockey Club’s autumn carnival next week. Three of the stars of the (George Adams field, Palisade, 'Court Belle, and Cassarook, ( have one thing in common. ! None of them raced ' at two I years. | In fact Palisade did not 1 race at three years either. ( Court Belle’s stablemate, Baal 1 Hanan, is another that did not

race at two years, and Red Siren and Riccarton’s Even Chance had but one start apiece at that age. Relations The close family relationship of Palisade and Court Belle will also draw attention to the stoutness of the southern family to which they belong if, as expected, they play big roles in the finish. Peony Rose, the grand-dam of Palisade and Court Belle, was more than handy as a middle distance performer in the south nearly 30 years ago, and when mated to Defaulter to produce Court Belle’s dam, Defendant, and to Royal Chief to produce Palisade’s dam, Peony Royal, she left two more stout performers.

Lucy Gray will be one of four runners for North Island stables in the George Adams Handicap, but she comes from a family that was established in the South Island, and has had some distinguished staying representatives. Lucy Gray is a seven-year-old by Kurdistan out of Peel Tower. She is seven and an elder half-sister of Even Chance, and a close relation of Mr W. E. Hazlett’s good stayer, Eiffel Tower, the favourite for the Riverton Cup. Lucy Gray did not start racing until she was four. Stamina As her position on the minimum suggests she has not been a wonderful success, but she has the stamina to run every yard of a mile and a half, and it is thought she should be better on a roomy course like Riccarton’s than on the tracks where she has done most of her racing in the Auckland district.

Awapuni’s Bandon, winner of the Great Autumn Handicap here two years ago, is another that was not raced at two years. The Woodville stayer, Sail Away, had three races as a two-year-old, and the few demands made on him before he developed and matured must have counted for much in the last few months. This season he has had a programme of racing that would have “flattened” a good many horses. “Iron” Horse

Sail Away was brought south for the Canterbury Jockey Club’s autumn meeting last year but did not get a race. On the trip south he was savaged by his stablemate, Royal Chase, and was put out of action. In the spring he was taken to Melbourne, and confounded a battery of critical writers and other observers by coming up better than ever with each race in a very busy programme. W. D. Skelton, his regular rider, told “The Press” he had never come across a horse quite like Sail Away before. “Give him a couple of days off, and it’s like starting all over again,” Skelton explained. On the morning of the first day of the Melbourne Cup meeting, a member of a tele-

vision panel of racing men said: “Sail Away might turn up in the Hotham Handicap this afternoon, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned up at the trots tonight!” Cup Failure Sail Away won the Hotham Handicap with a performance that established him as favourite for the Melbourne Cup. But in the £30,000 twomiler three days later he ran a very ordinary race, and his connexions felt later that the Tsaoko gelding could have been bothered by a slight injury—one received when he had to change course quickly to dodge a rival in the rush for positions in the Hotham. But now, five months later, Sail Away seems to be racing just as well as ever he did, and without a great deal of luck at times. Sail Away had his third two-mile race for the season in the Chalmers Handicap at Trentham last month and finished third behind Palisade and Grand Filou. He had none the best of it in the running when fifth in the Wall Memorial at the Waipukurau meeting last Saturday.