Grand National double for Temperton?

Press, 11 August 1979, Page 20

Grand National double for Temperton?

Bv

PAUL MEIN

Should the Eric Tempertontraincd Witchety win the $12,500 Grand NationalHurdles today, he will bridge! a 40-year void in hurdling records. Not since 1939, the years, of the mighty Padishah, owned and trained by J. E. Hennah. has a trainer prepared the winners of both the Grand National Steeples and Hurdles in the same year. Padishah triumphed as favourite when he won the 1939 Grand National Steeplechase, then appeared twX> days later to lump '/.7

, (73kg) to victory in the Hur-> idles. Winning Riccarton’s pres- , tige-bearing hurdle event! ; would be no new experience' ijto Temperton. With four : | training victories to his . | credit be is the most sucIcessful man in The 95 year i history of the race. m His first success, with Tremello i'n 1948, was achieved tf. the age of 23, his otheg winners being Gay Fellow (1950), Bagush and Lordtuckey, ridden by Takanini’s Brian Hilife in 1968. Fiillis’s uncle, Bill Hillis, ’■/ Riverton, has trained /three National Hurdles win‘>[ners, a feat achieved also by 71 Rex Cochrane

Hillis’s wins came with Eiffel Tower, which he also rode to victory in 1966 and 1967, and Rapid Flight last year, which he part owned. Cochrane won with Cogitation (1957), Game Call (1966) and Enceeoh seven years ago. In Witchety, Temperton has material to strike an unprecedented training coup — five. National Hurdles victories.

Witchety kept on gamely for third to Ambrose Lodge in the Sydenham Hurdles last Saturday. The Celtic Park gelding was successful three times over fences last term including wins at Manawatu, Foxton and Marton.