Charlestown measured up in English visitor’s rating

Press, 3 August 1981, Page 22

Charlestown measured up in English visitor’s rating

By

J. J. BOYLE

“It goes to show you don’t need big numbers of horses to get a good race,” the famous English jumping rider, Bob Champion, said after he saw his first New Zealand Grand National Steeplechase on Saturday.

Champion, who won the English Grand National on Aldaniti four months earlier, believes Charlestown, winner of the $20,000 race at Riccarton on Saturday would adapt easily to the demands of 'chasing in his country.

Mr Ken Browne, the 47-year-old grandfather who rode Charlestown to that easy win on Saturday, believed he had the horse sold for $6OOO to England, but the sale fell through because of a failed veterinary test. Browne did not think there was anything seriously wrong with Charlestown, but wonders if the would-be purchasers had examined the horse's barren race record as

a three-year-old in Australia,

Charlestown was bred in Queensland and Ken Browne bought him for $l3OO at a Sydney sale.

“He'd had 11 starts and in most of them he had not been closer than second last,” Browne said on Saturday. "But there was a chance a big fellow like this, bred for stamina, would work out well with a bit of time. Browne was attracted to the stout staying influences in Charlestown’s pedigree when he bought the gelding in Sydney. By Charlton (son of Charlottesville) winner of the William Hill Gold Trophy for the Queen, Charlestown is

from La Grande Voleuse, by Sobig. The next dam was by Le Filou, and was a daughter of Shot Silk, winner of a Waikato Gold Cup when that race was a two-miler. Ken Browne said the softening of the track with the arrival of rain in Christchurch on Friday, had helped his chances. And the big brushes had brought out the best in his horse's jumping skills, in contrast to the position when he tilted at Wellington Steeplechase honours at Trentham last month. Charlestown was in command of the situation on Saturday after the Wash-dyke-trained Taitan hit hard at the third last fence. Until

then all systems were working smoothly with Taitan for Paul Dooney.

“Then he clobbered that fence, hit the ground with his head, and came back bleeding about the mouth," Dooney said. "Before that I was going better than the winner. I got him going again, but he got too far under the second last, and it was Ken Browne's race there and then," Dooney said.

. The favourite. Off an' On, was also well in contention with Charlestown and Taitan going to the third last fence, but came out of it with fading powers, and dropped away into third in a gap.

He finished 20 lengths from the winner, and seven lengths behind Taitan.

Arrest was well beaten by the distance. He was his usual keen self to lead them over the first round, but was beaten all of 1800 m out. He straggled in for fourth, but had no competition for that distant placing. Bright Flight was out of the race with a fractured sesamoind bone at the end of a round, and a mission impossible for Life's a Gamble ended when he went down at Cult’s about 2000 m out, and lay on the ground, weary and winded for several minutes.