Championship pacers arrive from Australia

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 9

Championship pacers arrive from Australia

Shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday three pacers, part of the contingent which will represent Australia at the InterDominion Championships which begin at Addington Raceway next Saturday evening, arrived at Christchurch Airport after an uneventful seven and a half-hour flight from Sydney. They are Koala Frost, Brave Rex and Welcome Advice, all from New South Wales. Imatoff, from the same state, and the Victorian trotter. Just Money, which were also supposed to on the flight, were lastminute defections. Imatoff’s owner offered two reasons why the horse

did not make the trip. First, he decided against it after the horse had performed badly in the Australia Day Cup at Harold Park Raceway in Sydney on Friday night. He also said that he was not satisfied with the transport provided to bring the horses to New Zealand. He alleged that the D.C.4 in which the horses travelled was at least 30 years old.

No one seems to know what happened to Just Money. Tiie horse did not turn up at loading time.

Imatoff has now been officially scratched from the series. Nothing has yet been heard from the connections of Just Money, which won the main race for trotters at Harold Park on Friday night. Just Money could now also be considered out of the series even if the connections changed their minds. The plane due in from Melbourne today with the remaining Australian Inter-Dominion

candidates will have a capacity load. Unless something unforeseen happens, today’s flight will bring the West Australian pacers, Junior’s Image and Mount Eden, the South Australian pacers, Deep Court and Golden Rhyme, and Last Flood and Retop’s Pride, from Victoria. The latter will now be the only visiting trotter in the series. The horses are due -at Christchurch about 2 pan. this afternoon. Brave Rex and Welcome' Advice, which are quartered at Addington, did about an hour’s walking and jogging work in the hands of their respective trainers, L. Adams and G. Harpley, at the raceway yesterday morning. Both looked in exceptionally good order after their long trip.

Koala Frost, the most tightly assessed Australian pacer at the championships, was allotted a similar task on a private track at Templeton. He will be quartered at Mr C. L. Rhodes’s Peterson Lodge property throughout the series.

Koala Frost, the winner of 25 of his 34 races, is a most impressive looking individual. He has size and strength and his looks belie the fact that he lacks recent racing. Unfortunately for fans Koala Frost will not be seen in action except on race day. His Sydney trainer, K. Newman, said yesterday that he would do ail his preparatory work at Peterson Lodge. Brave Rex, the winner of 16 races, is unlikely to be seen at speed till later in the week. “I’ll not honple him before Thursday,” said Adams, whose stables are about 25 miles from the centre of Sydney, yesterday morning.

Brave Rex came through a hard race at Harold Park on Friday night—he finished sixth in the Australia Day Cup—in good trim but was still a bit unsettled and not eating as well as he might yesterday after the long trip across. Welcome Advice lost a bit of weight on the trip but not enough to cause his trainer concern. Harpley, whose stables are at Junee—a country town in southern New South Wales—said he was not surprised that the four-year-old looked a bit tucked up. "You would expect that after travelling 300 miles by float to Sydney on Thursday and a 1300-mile plane trip,” he said.

“He’ll have all that condition back by the end of the week. He hasn’t missed a feed since we got here and that’s a good sign.” In fact, Welcome Advice’s trainer is so pleased with the way he came through the trip he is considering hoppling him up this morning and doing a bit of strong work. Harpley was not sure just how many races Welcome Advice has won. “It is either 18 or 19 and about 11 of them have been at the Melbourne Showgrounds,” he said. B. Anderson is fined (N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN. B. J. Anderson* the driver of Bachelor Blue in the Farewell Stakes at Forbury, was fined $4O for careless driving after an inquiry into an incident with three furlongs to run when Seafield Duke broke.