CUP WINNER IN LAST SEASON OF RACING

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31210, 7 November 1966, Page 4

CUP WINNER IN LAST SEASON OF RACING

Royal Bid Sore After Outstanding Victory

Plans to retire Royal Bid at the end of the season were announced after the spectacular win of the handsome Southland-owned, Riccartontrained chestnut in the New Zealand Cup on Saturday.

Royal Bid pulled up sore after winning the South Island’s richest race on Saturday and was little better yesterday.

Royal Bid made nearly all the running in the last mile and a half and won by a length from the 1966 Wellington Cup winner, Red Crest. Cassarook, probably the strongest finisher in the race, overcame difficulties in the running to get up for third a head back.

The Riccarton trainer, V. D. Clutterbuck, hopes to have Royal Bid fit to run in the Wellington Cup, but feels he might have to settle for major races at Riccarton next Easter. Behind the success story of Royal Bid is a story of dedicated attention and confidence confidence that Royal Bid was good enough to win the cup if able to do himself justice on the day. Foot Trouble The foot in Royal Bid’s near foreleg has given trouble for much of his racing career. Having to work him hard for a two-mile race increased the trainer’s problems.

"The foot must be just alive and that’s all,” Clutterbuck said on Saturday. ‘‘We have been keeping the wet bandages on him and we have had our worries in the last fortnight. Royal Bid was sired by Howe, a great son of Defoe, and like Phar Lap. Kindergarten, Dalray and some other champions, he belongs to the Miss Kate family. Mr L. B. McKenzie, a farmer from Isla Bank in Southland, decided to buy into this family about 20 years ago, and took the first step towards owning a New Zealand Cup winner when he secured Bidi Bidi from Messrs J. and J. S. Price, then of Invercar-

gill, now North Islanders. Bidi Bidi was by Nightmarch and was descended from Miss Kate through Persis, ancestress also of Prince Grant, Bridge Acre, Al-Sirat,

Catania and some other top performers. The influence of Nightmarch, one of the most famous of all New Zealand Cup winners, and conqueror of Phar Lap in a Melbourne Cup. could not have been inconsiderable in the pedigree of the 1966 Cup winner. Mr McKenzie sold Bidi Bidi with a foal at foot (later a winner as Lumphanan) to Messrs A. G. and W. A. Copland. Bidi Bidi foaled Royal Bid’s dam, My Bid, to a mating with Christopher Robin. Disappointment My Bid has not produced since she foaled Royal Bid and she is now 20. “We are still hoping for a filly from My Bid to carry on the family,” Mr McKenzie said yesterday.

Since he came to Riccarton from Southland to join the Clutterbuck stable Royal Bid has been ridden regularly by F. H. Skelton, the second eldest of the famous family of jockeys. Skelton felt confident of winning on the home turn where Royal Bid was “just lobbing along.

“Two Breathers’’ “These big races can develop into proper shambles when no one wants to go early, so I decided to take my chance,” Skelton said after the race. “Royal Bid did not have a big weight to carry, and I was sure he would go along quietly for me. As it turned out, I was able to give him two breathers. Red Crest i got pretty close to me in the straight, but I did not worry i much about that. I did not 1 use the whip on him. He is i too good a horse for that.” “I thought I had it won outside the furlong,” said Red Crest’s rider, N. D. Riordan. “I had a good run all the way, three out for a time, but that did not concern me. But what could have made all the difference was that one of his elastic bandages had worked loose. Bill Skelton told me it was flapping loose at the nine furlongs. “Palisade couldn’t have done any better than Cassarook did today,” J. R. Dowling said after riding the' Gore gelding into third place. Dowling said Cassarook lost the race when he struck trouble in a packed field near the five furlongs. “There was nothing we could do about it unless it was to pull out and be off the course. There were no-hopers in that field, and they shouldn’t have been there. They were coming back on us and getting us into trouble a long way from home. “Even after all that Cassarook would have still won if he had kept straight from the home turn,” Dowling said. E. J. Didham, rider of the favourite. Eiffel Tower, said he had the same trouble as Dowling with horses coming back on him. “When I was ready to go they all sprinted and we were not good enough to get back into it.”

One of the unluckiest of the other unplaced runners was the second favourite, Tinsel. B. S. Dodds said that the run of the race had gone all against the Hastings mare. Manana, the 4/5 favourite, was beaten by the distance. “He was gone near the home turn,” said his rider, A. J. Stokes.