Unusual Breeding Of Smart Filly

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31548, 9 December 1967, Page 19

Unusual Breeding Of Smart Filly

(From the Australian Racing Correspondent of “The Press”) SYDNEY. Perhaps Mona’s Joy has inherited something more than an ability to gallop. This three-year-old filly won her fourth successive race when she gained a narrow win in the second division of the Belmore Graduation Stakes at Canterbury on Saturday. Four horses flashed over the line, Biarritz Star and Dawn Boy locked together near the rails, More Chatter almost in the centre of the track, and still further out Mona’s Joy. Again Mona’s Joy had veered out sharply when the pressure was put on her for her run, just as she has in previous wins. Mona’s Joy is by Gold Sovereign (imp.) from Sinaloa, and was bred at Hamilton. Sinaloa is by Spiral from Gayle, which in turn, was by Ringmaster (imp.) from Aspen, and Aspen was by Spiral. Thus Spiral had been mated with his granddaughter to prduce Sinaloa, and whether this had anything to do with the “madness” that makes Mona’s Joy veer outwards when really at her top is a factor on which opinion would be divided. The in-breeding is even closer when it is recognised that Spiral and Gold Sovereign share a common ancestress each of them in direct female descent. Both come from the great broodmare, Admiration, and on very similar lines that include a strain from Spearmint, the son of Carbine. Spiral was a very good horse, by Limond (imp.) from Drax (imp.). He had a good winning brother in Australia in Lynch Law, but this handsome galloper was not quite the same standard as Spiral, whose wins

included the New Zealand St Leger. However, Lynch Law was of some class for he won the Kirkham Stakes and the December Stakes. Gold Sovereign is by Grey Sovereign from Swift Gold, a mare by William of Valence. He did not win until he was a four-year-old, and then an Apprentice Handicap at Windsor, which would not give him any great recomendation as a sire. But his pedigree is attractive in this part of the world for his dam, Swift Gold, was half-sister to Gold Nim (imp.), a successful sire in New Zealand. Moreover, Swift Gold’s second dam was Cresta Run, the halfsister to Foxbridge (imp.), whose influence in New Zea land and in Australia has been profound. He was leading New Zealand sire 11 times.