Welcome update of valuable research work

Press, 3 August 1985, Page 27

Welcome update of valuable research work

Bravo Ross du Bourg! This enthusiastic Australian thoroughbred student has responded to many farreaching and notable developments in the last five years with an update of his splendid piece of research embodied in “The Australian and New Zealand Thoroughbred.” The revised edition retains the best features of the 1980 work and allows the author to pay his tribute to newly-emerged stars in the thoroughbred firmament. Notable on that short list are the New Zealandbased stallions Sir Tristram and Noble Bijou. Mr du Borg is also quick to recognise the worth of the Noble Bijou—Mellay cross, an unvaluable legacy of the presence of those two brilliantly influential sires at the now-famous White Robe Lodge Stud in Otago within a short space of time.

From his analysis of the extended pedigrees of Noble Bijou and Mellay Mr du Bourg discovers what he describes as a radical new

genetic concept he calls “prepotent fusion.” In his enthusiastic presentation of such a concept and of other researches into genetic-pool relations the author might leave many readers struggling along tortuous paths, but he leaves no one in doubt with some of his other observations and berates Australian breeders for their tendency to retreat “in baffled somewhat sulky disarray” rather than meet the challenge of New Zealand staying supremacy. Mr du Bourg believes that prizes for “immature, highly-pressured two-year-olds” have spiralled out of all proportionn in Australia, especially in widely-pub-licised “scampers” like the Golden Slipper Stakes. But he takes comfort from the knowledge that the big proportion of the financial rewards for the top-class racehorse of the 1980 s in Australia is being programmed in favour of the fast middle distance classic stayer, one able to carry its speed through to

the cup distance of .< 3200 m. Mr du Bourg submits potentially “magic” formu- ■ las for the production of Melbourne Cup winners and other superior stayers over the next decade. But his formulas bear little relation to the one - that triggered the purchase of that staying phenomenon, Kiwi. The gelding which staggered the racing world with his performance to win the 1983 Melbourne Cup met two criteria when the Luptons went ringside in search of a youngster — he was sired by Blarney Kiss, not one of the more fashionable sires, and he is a chestnut. Kiwi does not get a mention in Mr du Bourg’s book, but in other directions the author has laboured assiduously and enthusiastically in his tribute to the vast influence of the New Zealand thorougbred, for its direct input into racing, and its potential for the development of trans-Tasman outcrosses. — J. J. Boyle