Drum not to seek Triple Crown

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 26

Drum not to seek Triple Crown

Special correspondent Hastings The Hastings galloper Drum, has been scratched from Saturday’s $25,000 Hawke’s Bay Cup and his connections will now miss a chance to win $200,000. The Hawke’S Bay Cup is the second leg of a $200,000 ‘‘Triple Crown,” offered by the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club. The prize was to go to the owners of a horse which could win three feature races on the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club’s calendar. The $200,000 is thought to have been put up by an insurance company and the Hawke’s Bay Jockey Club paid a premium. The three races were the $7OOO ' Hastings Cup, the Hawke’s Bay Cup and the Ormond MemoriaL Drum won the first leg, the Hastings Cup, on December 29. He was thus the only horse left with a chance of winning the $200,000. . However, the horse’s trainer, Don Sellwood, has decided to give up a chance of landing the big prize and will instead give the horse a holiday. Sellwood said yesterday that Drum was all right in himself but that he had “trained off a bit.” ’ “He’s just a bit low. 111

put him out until the spring. There’s plenty of time for him,” said Sellwood. The weather also had some bearing on Sellwood’s decision. “The weather might be against us. It’s rained again and he’s no good on a wet track,” he said, Sellwood was also not happy with the weight Drum was allocated in the Hawke’s Bay Cup. The Handicapper, Mr Stewart McGrail, gave the horse topweight of 57kg. “I think the horse was badly handicapped compared with hdrses like Orchidra and Mun Lee,” said Sell-

wood. “The handicappers have got to him here,” he added. Sellwood is now looking to racing Drum in Australia in the hope that the handicappers “are a bit more kind to him there.” He will probably take the horse to Melbourne in the spring with the Melbourne Cup and weight-for-age races in mind. Drum is a four-year-old gelding by War Hawk II out of Nevertheless and is owned by Sellwood in partnership with Mr Pat Donnelly and Mr Wayne Pike, of Hastings and Mr Kevin Pike, of Australia.

The four bought the horse for $3300 at the 1976 Waikato Yearling Sales. Drum has now won $36,015 from 19 starts. He has notched eight wins, two seconds, three thirds and three fourths and has not failed to weigh in from 10 starts this season. In February of this year there was talk of Drum being sold to an Australian trainer for an undisclosed price, said to be about $175,000.. However, the horse failed to pass the mandatory veterinary test and ,the, sale fell through.