Little Brown Jug up for sale

Press, 23 October 1980, Page 20

Little Brown Jug up for sale

From

J. J. Boyle Melbourne

Little Brown Jug’s Australian campaign under the direction of Riccarton trainer Peter Jones has ended. “He is on the market, but if he is not sold here he will be flown back to New Zealand without racing again on the trip,” Peter Jones said yesterday. If the four-year-old is not sold in Australia he will be prepared . for the .feature weight-for-age at the Canterbury Jockey Club's December meeting then the Timaru Gold Cup. Jones has suggested to the owners that they put the horse into the catalogue for the mixed sale at Trentham in January. “If we put him up for auction thst. -might settle all the hassles about his market value,” Jones told me yesterday,

Little Brown Jug won close to $28,000 on the trip and as Jones points out he

could not have won that much in New Zealand at the same time of the year. Jones said Little Brown Jug was somewhat dis-; tressed after his unplaced run in the Caulfield Cup last Saturday and still wonders if the horse swallowed one of the clods of dirt thrown into his face as he was following Ming Dynasty before the home turn. “He did not show anything for Roy Higgins from the home turn, and came back acting as if he had had a really hard race,” Jones said yesterday. Jones said his horse could

have finished a few positions closer but Higgins dropped his hands on him when he saw there was no chance of reaching one of the places. If Jones continues to train Little Brown Jug he is hoping that the different nature of the tracks back at Riccarton will help last season’s top three-year-old to find again his sharpness of sprint. “He seemed to get very one paced on the sandy galloping tracks at Mornington. He could not find that kick like he did at home last sea-

son. Besides he was being ridden closer to the lead over here, and that might have affected his finishes.”

The three-year-old Athos, which accompanied My Brown Jug to Melbourne, will l not, be taken back to New Zealand. He has been placed on the market, and Jones believes Mr Russell Boyd's colt will be sold in the next few days. Athos did not show a glimmer of his best form on the trip, and Jones believes the bay might need gelding before he gets down to purposeful racing.