Mr Muldoon visits Canadian stud

Press, 6 September 1982, Page 28

Mr Muldoon visits Canadian stud

NZPA staff correspondent Toronto The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon), in toronto for World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings which get into full swing this week, took time out at the week-end to visit the ancestral home of Macdoon, the pacer he owned with the former transport minister, Mr Colin MacLachlan.

Macdoon died tragically earlier this year on a trip to the South Island when he went down in his float and strangled himself.

The Armstrong brothers' 400-hectare stud, home of the Armbro line, is set in lush horse country about an hour’s drive from Toronto. It has been shifted a few miles from its original location, and is run now by Charles Armstrong, son of Elgin, one of the original brothers.

Yearlings sell for an average of sCan37,ooo and go all over the world. Macdoon, named for the two ministers, was by Noodlum, a highly successful pacer in which Mr Muldoon

had no interest, but was named for him (backwards), out of Barbara Del, which was sired by Armbro Del, imported to New Zealand from the Armstrong brothers’ stud.

Elgin Armstrong's first horse was a filly named Helicopter. He saw her as he was driving in Florida on the way home to Canada and bought her.

She went on to win the Hambletonian, America’s classic trotting race. Now the stud, with its new maple trees and old roses, is big business, with successful horses going, on to change hands for millions of dollars.

Everything is spic and span, the accounts computerised, the fire-door closing automatically if the termperature rises, trophies in glass cases as far as the eye can see. and some 50 staff.

Charles Armstrong enjoyed Mr Muldoon’s visit: the Prime Minesterial paty, complete with six Canadian security men, arrived with a case of New Zealand wine in the boot of one of the four cars. It was consumed with lunch at a nearby restaurant.