Willie Duggan scores at Winton

Press, 30 December 1985, Page 25

Willie Duggan scores at Winton

Special correspondent Invercargill Willie Duggan, named after the great Irish No. 8 rugby forward, ran away from his rivals in the Southland Construction Winton Trotting Cup on Saturday. A seven-year-old Nordel Skipper gelding, he was foaled on the night of the All Blacks-Ireland rugby test at Landsdowne Road, Dublin, in December, 1978.

“His foaling interrupted Bryce Buchanan’s viewing of the telecast of the test that night when his dam, Young Caragh, was at Cedar Lodge Stud,” the gelding’s trainer and partowner, Mr Paddy Dunne, recalled after the win.

Mr Dunne, vice-president of the Invercargill Trotting Club and an Invercargill veterinary surgeon, bred Willie Duggan in partnership with Mr Tom Hogan, a Roslyn Bush farmer who is a vice-president of the Southland Racing Club.

The partners leased him out for racing to Mr Pat Ryley, of Invercargill, a meat plant foreman, and his wife, Dorothy. Entrusted to Derek Jones at Templeton, Willie Duggan won three races before injuring a fetlock. He did not race at all last season and the Ryleys then entered back into an agreement with his breeders, Messrs Dunne and Hogan, for racing purposes this season.

Under the lease agreement between the three partners, Mr Dunne does the training. Willie Duggan was recommissioned last June and resumed at the Tuapeka meeting last month. He was a handy fifth, after working clear late, in the Gore Cup on Boxing Day and came up even sharper on Saturday for the Winton Trotting Club’s meeting. Young Caragh, the dam of Willie Duggan, has had four of her foals to get to the

races for as many winners — Willie Duggan, Caragh’s Bret (two), Miss Caragh and Young Tactile. A year ago, a Transport a yearling filly from her e a pelvis in a freak paddock accident and had to be destroyed. Young Caragh, a member of the Polly family, is the dam of a colt foal by Surmo Hanover (son of Albatross) and is safely in foal again to that popular Hokonui Stud stallion.