Many attractions at Wellington carnival

Press, 20 January 1979, Page 20

Many attractions at Wellington carnival

From J. J. BOYLE Wellington The Wellington Racing Club is confident of record betting and spectacular racing for its three-day summer carnival, opening with the Wellington Cup today. It will have a glittering attraction in Uncle Remus, probably on the second day of the meeting, and its $75,000 Cup today should be the medium of spectacular wagering. One of the more intriguing aspects of this year’s Wellington Cup is that it could well be the first to be won by a female jockey. The talented Linda Jones will ride Northfleet, a highly regarded light-weight trained at Cambridge by her husband, Alan. Northfleet at four years is the youngest in the field, and he has thrived on a successful public preparation designed to have him at his peak for today’s great race. Northfleet has 49kg and if the winner is to come from the lower half of a fairly compressed handicap he might well be the one.

Bob Skelton will join another famous name on the (Wellington Cup records if he -wins on Magistrate today. I The former South Islander has won five Wellington tCups, three of them on (Great Sensation. I Sixty years ago, Roy Reed imade the first contribution to a remarkable record in (the race. In 1919 he was on Rewi |Poto which dead-heated with the heavily backed Red Ribbon and in tljf following year rode Kilmoon which dead-heated with Oratress. i A year later he won out- ■ right on Maioha and two .years after that on Rapine. I Then after a break of five I years he won the 192” Cup on Star Stranger, which (triumphed under 9.8, and (after a break of another four I years he was successful on Compris. 1 Roy Reed was killed in a race fall at Trentham later in the 19305. Before Roy Reed’s first Wellington Cup success his brother. Ashley, had won the race on Bee (1916) and Bunting (1917). Those who have seen Optica in the last few days re-

gard him as one of the most likely threats to Magistrate and the favourite, Tamboura, today. Optica finished like a train for third in the Auckland Cup. He was given an easy time after that race and did not show much at Avondale last week, but he galloped brilliantly in training at Trentham yesterday. His connections now feel the five-year-old is better than he was on Auckland Cup day. Optica has sturdy influences for stamina in his pedigree. He descends from Clarice, which produced a top stayer in Classowa. The veteran Australian jockey, John Miller, will also claim some attention today when he rides Aberman, a form runner from Cambridge in the Wellington Stakes.

Miller was a battling jockey in Perth and Melbourne until he came under the notice of the great. trainer, Bart Cummings, in the 19605. He had lost a daughter and his mother-in-law in a motor accident in 1962, but four years later he had his greatest season in racing as partner for the New Zea-

land-bred Galilee, winner of the Caulfield, Melbourne and Svdney Cups for the Cummings'stable. Galilee became the first, to win those three big Cups in one season. He also became only the second horse — The Trump was the first — to win the Toorak Handicap, Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup treble. Aberman, Miller’s mount in the Wellington Stakes, is by Azemann from Aberdonian, a Ribotlight mare from Pale Blue. The next dam, Pastel, was one cf the most brilliant two-year-old fillies o' her year. She was trained at Riccarton by the late Jack Shaw. Uncle Remus won the Wellington Stakes last year for Colin Jillings’s Takanini stable.

Jillings’s hopeful for today’s race is Springtide, which has been the bridesmaid in the wake of the Hastings-trained Tang in feature faces for fillies in the last few weeks.

Tang will be a commanding favourite again today, but if she has any ill luck in the running Springtide will be the most likely to capitalise on it.