La Mer in famous company with latest win

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 18

La Mer in famous company with latest win

By

J. J. BOYLE

La Mer captivated everyone with yet another display of a formidable talent in winning the Awapuni Gold Cup on Saturday. She became only the second to complete a double in the Manawatu Racing Club’s two most historic races, the other being the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes for two-year-olds. The famous Desert Gold won 'the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes in 1915, and captured the Awapuni Gold Cup in 1916, 1917 and again in 1918.

“La Mer has given us some wonderful moments,” her trainer Malcolm Smith jsaid on Saturday. “And this, of course, has to be one of I the greatest of all . . . to [think she becomes the first ■in all those many years ) since Desert Gold to come up with a great double.”

) La Mer, as winner of $143,745, is one of the most I unusual and certainly a most I exciting young 1 contributot Ito educational causes in I New Zealand. | She races in the estate of [the late L. A. Alexander, ) which in association with the Wynthorpe Slud in Tara-

naki substantially supports the New Plymouth High Schools' Board.

i The educational trust, : whose interests are so well | served by La Mer, plans to ) establish an agricultural col-j lege on Wynthorpe’s 173 acres, but Wynthorpe will) continue as a ’ thoroughbred|

nursery for some time yet, and La Mer’s future will be determined by the time it takes to secure a young stallion in the Northern Hemisphere for a first, mating with the brilliant daughter of the patriarch, Copenhagen 11. At Awapuni on Saturday Malcolm Smith was in earnest conversation with an English bloodstock agent who has supplied a list of horses from which a selection might be made. If it takes some months to decide on a purchase La Mer will probably race again next season. In the meantime the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club’s! Ormond Memorial will be on! her progamme if the track is i firm.

One of the more jubilant observers of La Mer’s brilliant all-the-way- victory on Saturday was Mr John Austin, of Oxford. Last year Mr Austin purchased La Mer’s grandam Olgiata, which was ,in foal 'to Taipan 11, and the Eng-lish-bred Acropolis mare presented Mr Austin with a much-hoped-for filly last spring. Olgiata was imported from England by the late Mr Jack Alexander. She was carrying |to the service of the brilliantly-successful broodmare sire, Worden 11, and 'the result of that mating I was La Mer’s dam, La Balsa, which did not race.