Good win for local owners

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 8

Good win for local owners

(From Our Own Reporter)

HAMILTON.

International Stakes day at Te Rapa yesterday started happily for the Christchurch owners, Messrs D. A. Freear and B. D. Kinley, in partnership with Mr W. Dailey, of Napier, and the Cambridge trainer, W. J. Bromby. They race the two-year-old, touch 'n' Go, which was unbeaten In two starts at the Waikato meeting. This Forearmed filly could not have been more impressive in winning the Karitane Handicap yesterday.

Ridden by W. D. Skelton, Touch ’n’ Go skipped away from the others in the straight to win by four lengths from Manchero.

“She’s a proper little machine,” Skelton said after the race. “I’ll go anywhere to ride this filly in her autumn engagements.”

Bromby said his speedster would probably be prepared for the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes, and would do her Easter racing at Ellerslie. Touch ’n’ Go’s brilliant patch of form has written another notable chapter into the success story of the French-bred Astropheua as a producer. One of Astrophella’s best winners has been Advocacy. She also produced Beau Supreme and Bodi, winners for J. C. McKerrow's Washdyke stable. Bred at Ramarama by Sirs J. Hawkins, Touch ’n’ Go is raced on lease by the four-sided partnership. Mr Freear was at Te Rapa to see the filly’s two wins, but Mr Kinley was unable to come north, and he would not have heard the race on the radio either on Saturday but for some inspired team work. Mr Freear arranged for a telephone call from the course just before the race, and Mr Kinley was able to hear the course commentary over the telephone. The South Island also had a direct interest in two of Touch ’n’ Go’s beaten rivals. Golden Gleam, a half-sister by Krudistan to Sailing Home, was having her first start for Miss J. Edgar-Jones and finished fourteenth. Gold Wire, a chestnut colt by Lomond from Apathy, owned by Mr W. E. Hazlett, and trained at Cambridge by J. W. Winder, ran an improver’s seventh after running keenly three wide in the leading group to the straight.