Hunterville’s owner sold cup winner’s dam

Press, 26 July 1983, Page 28

Hunterville’s owner sold cup winner’s dam

Special correspondent Auckland Hunterville’s owner, Mr Doug MacKenzie, standing by, as Out in Front returned to scale from winning the Taumarunui Racing Club’s Taumarunui Cup on Saturday . might well have thought here was another good one he should have raced.

Then operating his Kempton Park Stud, at Putaruru, Mr MacKenzie bred Out in Front’s dam, Brightest, by Bucentaur from Dashing Star, a very good former racing mare he held on lease.

His quitting Brightest was a consequence of a visit paid to kempton Park by the American millionaire: owner and breeder, Mr Nelson Bunker Hunt, and his son, Houston, back in 1970.

As Mr MacKenzie recalls, it was a late afternoon in February when Mr Hunt and his party came by. The American’s attention was taken by Brightest, then a yearling, in a front paddock. Mr MacKenzie agreed she could be bought and the deal was completed over

afternoon tea. Unfortunately for Mr Hunt, Brightest was a long way from being the best horse he ever raced and indeed, from 30 starts, managed only three minor wins, one over hurdles. The first two foals he bred from her were equally undistinguished. She was then secured by a Matamata veterinary surgeon, Mr John O’Flaherty, and, from her next covering, by Mr Hunt’s sire, Frontal, produced Out in Front. Unraced when a two-year-old, Out in Front won in three of her 15 starts the next season and she has been successful in four of the 10 she has had this time up, since mid-March. Her best win before this was in Trentham’s Cuddle Stakes, a 1600 m race on May 7. Soon afterwards she

had some trouble with an infected foot, otherwise her record might be even better. She looked a mare of some class in the way she won this latest time.

The rider, Earl Harrison, had planned to settle Out in Front around midfield but with the footing so unusually firm and the pace fast he found himself back with the tailenders with just 800 m to go. Somehow he managed to improve his position before they came to the home turn. The tearaway leader, Smart Devil, seemed briefly as though he might hang on sufficiently to make it close but, towards the finish, Out in Front came away strongly to win by two lengths. Behind Smart Devil they were mainly a collection of

disappointing cases. Azawary, attending Smart Devil all the way, turned in a much-improved effort for third, shading the each-way favourite, Otakiri Maid. But the second favourite, Crown and Anchor, was only eleventh. The third favourite, Cuss, back at the tailend in the finish, each outpaced on the firm ground. Out in Front is raced by Mr O’Flaherty and his wife in a partnership with a Gisborne man, Mr George Lowe, and an Aucklander, Mr John Spedding, and they have the mare in Dick Bothwell’s stable, at Stratford.

BothweH, with runners on Saturday at Awapuni, sent Out in Front north in the care of a 'stable employee, Lee McKenzie with the prediction that the mare would win or at least go very close.