Guineas next for Great Chevalier

Press, 20 August 1984, Page 32

Guineas next for Great Chevalier

Special correspondent Wellington Great Chevalier, with his win in the Waikato Racing Club’s Foxbridge Plate on Saturday, emerged as a real threat to Fothers and any others which will be going for the Guineas triple crown. His next race, all going well, will be the Wanganui Guineas next Saturday, with the two at Hastings and Trentham to follow. The $lOO,OOO bonus which attaches to the winning of all three races by the same horse will also be attracting Fothers and the good Takanini colt, Beechland, to Wanganui. Great Chevalier and Beechland were first and third respectively in the Ryder Stakes at Levin last month — the most recent race for the two of them — with the Cambridge filly, Avana, in between. Wanganui has been ruled out, though, for Avana. Her trainer, Ray Cleaver, naturally much encouraged by Great Chevalier’s form at Te Rapa, there being so little between the two

horses at Levin, is more inclined to keep the filly to races for her own sex. “In any case,” he said, “she could find the Guineas races too short, she is crying out for more ground.” Great Chevalier, judged by the determined way he ran out the 1400 m of the Foxbridge Plate, is not going to have any trouble lasting the 1600 of the guineas events: he will very likely go even further with success. The colt, by Great Wall, is after all a son of Cheval de Tricks and thus related to the Derby winner, Isle of Man. Cheval de Tricks and the dam of Isle of Man, Full O’Tricks, were both bred by Trictrac from Ides of March and were the last two foals produced by their dam — Full O’Tricks in 1970 and Cheval de Tricks in .1973. Great Chevalier was bought at auction as a weanling and leased out for racing, with right of purchase after a first couple of months in the stable of Peter and Brian Wadham at Ellerslie, * virtually unwanted. As Brian Wadham recalls, a north shore businessman eventually organised a syndicate of friends to take up the lease and just last week they exercised their right to buy the horse for $25,000. None of the partnership had ever owned a racehorse and they seem to have secured themselves a bargain. Great Chevalier has had 18 starts for five wins, the last two of which brought in the amount of his purchase price except for $1550. His success on Saturday carried an added distinction because only two other three-year-olds during the previous 20 years were up to winning the Foxbridge Plate — High Saint, in 1977, and the filly, Urupukapuka, in 1965. And his rider, the Takanini apprentice, Roy McKay, must be, surely, one of the youngest to have taken Te Rapa’s big weight-for-age race. The Northland-born lad, now in Cliff Fenwick’s employ, has just completed his second season of race riding and, not yet 18 years old, claims .32 wins, a notable one besides this the 1983 Manawatu Cup on Greatness. McKay had Great Chevalier up with Walksfar and Sharing second place behind the pacemaker, Glenside, as they came to the home straight after 700 m or so of Saturday’s 1400. With Glenside fading, Walksfar and Great Chevalier drew ahead in a battle that continued right to the finish. For a few strides, halfway down, Walksfar seemed as though she would stay the better but Great Chevalier came back in style to win by a neck. Koiro Corrie May, a fair way below her best distance, ran on encouragingly to take third place from’ Vera’s Pal, though two and a half lengths away from the first two. Dig In came fifth, battling on to make a little ground, and Deb’s Mate, sixth.