Brilliant ‘low flying’ in Air New Zealand Stakes

Press, 27 February 1984, Page 28

Brilliant ‘low flying’ in Air New Zealand Stakes

By

J. J. BOYLE

Lucky Aucklanders. Thousands of them savoured performances from two champions on Saturday. Before Martin Crowe hit his century at Eden Park McGinty won New Zealand’s richest weight-for-age race, the $BO,OOO Air New Zealand Stakes, with a performance that bodes well for his prospects in a programme of Sydney races, starting with the Chipping Norton Stakes on March 17 and ending with the $300,000 Tancred Stakes on April 14. McGinty is the first to win the Auckland Racing Club’s Air New Zealand Stakes twice, and he could not have achieved that second victory in more convincing fashion. He had two lengths and a half to show for his superiority, and wasted no time in doing so.

His time was 2min 1.655, a track record, for the distance of “about 2000 m” which, in fact is 16.5 metres more than the 2000 m.

The slightly longer dis-

tance is necessary at Ellerslie to allow ease of access to and from the track for the starting gate, but Mr Gordon McVeigh, the Ellerslie course manager, set up a post on the exact 2000 m distance before Saturday’s race, and from that point McGinty was timed to record 2min 0.65. In the context of a race so handsomely sponsored by Air New Zealand McGinty’s performance of sustained middle speed represented a memorable brand of low flying.

There were nine runners in the Air New Zealand Stakes, but general expectations were for something of a match race between McGinty and Commissionaire.

Commissionaire paraded looking bright and chipper, settled to his race seldom more than three parts of a length behind the trailing McGinty, then was taken forward, to all appearances galloping effortlessly, to join Silver Row in the lead near the home

turn. But then, to the great surprise of everyone, Commissionaire died on his run, and could muster no more than a flicker of resistance when Bob Vance eased McGinty away from the rails to make his challenge three wide. And while McGinty stormed ahead Commissionaire dropped away to come in last but one.

“I got the split when I wanted it, and never had anything to worry about when it came for me,” Vance said after the race.

“I saw Commissionaire go three wide to head for the lead, and that meant I would have been forced four wide if I had decided to go earlier. As it turned out Commissionaire had run his race by the time we joined him when we got round the corner.”

McGinty’s Takanini trainer, Colin Jillings, admitted later to some lack of confidence in the ability of his four-year-old to beat the

more-seasoned Commissionaire at the present stage of his programme. “It gives us great heart for another crack at the top horses in Australia,” Jillings said.

“He has some top horses to beat in Sydney, but he’s never really let us down in Australia before.”

Jillings does not have any plans for McGinty ranging beyond the Tancred Stakes next month.

He said the owners, Messrs Keith Haub and Barney McCahill, will have the final say, but he would prefer to ease the four-year-old out of racing after the Tancred.

“I reckon its time he won a big stake over there, and the Tancred is his big chance,” Jillings' said •on Saturday. Those looking for other pointers for the rich Easter carnival in Sydney must have been heartened by Isle of Man’s strong finish for third and Fountaincourt’s fifth close at hand.

Fountaincourt was acting like a dividend-payer about 100 m out, but could not quite sustain his effort under his weight of 58kg. “He would have still done better over a bit more ground,” Fountaincourt’s Trentham trainer, Cyril Pfefferle, commented.