Our Flight top stake earner

Press, 11 August 1983, Page 32

Our Flight top stake earner

PA Wellington The Filly of the Year, Our Flight, earned a record $205,675 in New Zealand in the 1982-83 season. Racing Conference figures show that Our Flight, the Auckland Cup winner, Fountaincourt, and the Central Districts galloper, Commissionaire, were the only three horses to win more than $lOO,OOB in New Zealand last season. Our Flight started 12 times for eight wins, two seconds, one third and one fourth. Her biggest victories were the New Zealand Derby, the Bayer Classic and the One Thousand Guineas. Fquntaincourt won only three of 11 starts and most of his prize money of $115,600 was earned in his upset victory in the $160,000 D.B. Auckland Cup.

Commissionaire won nine of his 15 starts, including the Group II Dalgety New Zealand International Stakes at Te Rapa and the Awapuni Gold Cup and the Group 111 Ormond Memorial at Hastings. His stakes tally was $101,290.

Fourth on the list was Clear Gold, which failed by less than $BOO to reach the $lOO,OOO mark. Clear Gold ran nine times for six wins and stakes of $99,220. His victories included the Group I Castlemaine XXXX Easter Handicap at-Ellers-lie and the D.B. 1600 at Trentham.

The fifth biggest stakes earner was the Wellington Cup winner, Kiwi, with $81,270. The conference says that 6457 horses faced the starter in New Zealand during the season. Only 639 won stakes in excess of $5OOO.