So Modest sale near completion

Press, 15 December 1983, Page 36

So Modest sale near completion

PA Auckland Several conditions have still to be met before a $500,000 deal to secure one of New Zealand’s leading sprinters, the Matamatatrained mare, So Modest, is completed. However, Mr Tom Scott, who bred the mare and heads the syndicate which races So Modest, said yesterday that he hoped financial arrangements would be settled tomorrow. So Modest is under offer to cosmetics manufacturer, Mr Tom Cottrell, of Dallas, Texas, who returned to the United States on Tuesday. Mr Fran Neuberger, of Auckland, acting as Mr Cottrell’s agent, said So Modest was still to undergo a fertility examination and a racing soundness test, both of which he hoped would be completed in a few days. So Modest was withdrawn from the Concorde Handicap at Avondale yesterday because of her pending sale to Mr Cottrell. Her connections felt it was too risky to race her. Mr Cottrell intends tc syndicate several shares in the five-year-old So Vain mare but is undecided who will train her. It is expected she will enter the Californian stables of Mel Stute or Wayne Lucas, but she may remain in New Zealand for a short period. “It depends on the organisation of transfer,” said Mr Neuberger. If So Modest does not leave immediately she will continue to be trained by Norm, Kevin and Karen

Crawford for the Ellerslie meeting on January 2. So Modest, the first foal from the Rangong mare Darilyn Kaye, won her first outing since February in track-record time over 1200 m at Pukekohe on December 3. She holds the 1200 m track record at Avondale, set when she won last year’s Concorde Handicap and set the New Zealand record of 1:7.52, for the distance in winning the Telegraph Handicap at Trentham in January.