Interest In Junipers

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 1 (Supplement)

Interest In Junipers

By

J. J. BOYLE

Steeplechases over a mini-circuit on the Wai-; mate course are usually' good value as spectacles.; They have also heen con-! tested by horses which have gone on to win some of New Zealand’s ! most important crosscountry races.

One such is Radiant Light, winner of the Waikato Steeples last Saturday for the powerful Hazlett-Hillis combination. One of Radiant Light’s three wins over country last year was in the main steeplechase at the Waimate Hunt meeting last July.

Three years earlier Linred broke through for the first win of his career in the steeplechase for amateur riders at Waimate. National Win This was the starting point to a winning record which was to reach its climax with a win in the 1967 Grand National. Linred had also tilted at Grand National Honours in 1966. but had to settle for second behind the Goretrained Game Call. Game Call also had some-

thing of a Waimate background. The Gore trainer, R. J. Cochrane, kept this good jumper to racing in the south as a lead-up to the Grand National, and one of his races was the Waimate Racing Club's Studholme Steeples. Melotone beat Game Call into second place in the Waimate feature race, and minor placings were to be the Goretrained horse’s lot three times more in South Canterbury before he came to Riccarton to win the difficult National-Lin-coln double.

Close Link Rex Cochrane’s father, the late J. R. Cochrane, was huntsman at Waimate for many years before moving to Southland to take up training, but a close link has been maintained hrough generous patrontage of Waimate race meetings. Rex Cochrane, who is Well in line for the trainers' premiership this season, has form horses in several races on tomorrow’s programme, and the hurdler. Deep Cove, might] I bring immediate success to I the stable. The Cochrane-trained i ■ Queen’s Birthday does not: look the least of chances in l I the Waimate Cup after her! 'fifth at Riccarton on Tues! : day. | Time and Tide, the logical; favourie after his Riccarton ■ victory this week, was the; (Waimate Cup third last year.l His owner, Mr D. W. J.! i Gould, of Christchurch, and ! trainer, J. C. Tomkinson, of, I Riccarton, had a winning ex-| i perience with Manana in the i Waimate Cup in 1966.