Homeby’s last hurrah as end-of-season feature

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 39

Homeby’s last hurrah as end-of-season feature

By

J. J. BOYLE

There was a time when final deliberations as to the likely outcome of a Grand National Steeplechase would be suspended until after the Christchurch Hunt’s Homeby.

Came 1983 and the Canterbury Jockey Club’s decision to switch the Grand National from the first to the third day of its winter carnival, and the Homeby’s importance as a lead-up to the big one was diminished. The Koral Steeplechase, on the first day of the C.J.C. meeting, was slotted into the position the Homeby previously occupied as that valuable preliminary a week before the National. Another variation in a changing pattern of winter racing in Canterbury ends with the Christchurch Hunt meeting at

Riccarton on Saturday. Next season the Christchurch Hunt’s meeting will no longer occupy the position it has held right at the tail-end of the season for so many years. It has been given July 1 next winter, and its wider distancing from the Grand National meeting might make the subject of Homeby-Grand National doubles even more one for remembrance of things past. For if the Homeby has been a race so closely identified with that famous grey, Koral, it also bears the name of some distinguished North Island jumpers on its honours board. Koral won seven Homebys, but less well remembered is that he had to settle for second to the Waikato-owned and trained Robert Earl when trying for a hat-trick as a six-year-old in 1967. Ten years ago Chumson had his first try at Riccarton fences in the Homeby and went out of the race before he was hardly warm, botching one of the smallest fences on the course, the carriage paddock brush. The experience was salutary, and the big fellow from Awapuni slammed the others in the Grand National a week later.

Michael Gillies, who was Chumson’s regular partner in a spectacular run of successes 10 years ago, rode Thun to win the Homeby-Grand National double for the Eric Temperton stable in 1976. Until Thun’s twin triumphs the HomebyGrand National double had proved elusive since Koral’s year, 1965. But in 1975 the Waikato-owned and trained Fumbler, brought off a more unusual double. His lead-up race to the Grand National was the Christchurch Hunt’s event for amateur riders, the Westenra Cup.

The Robinson-trained chestnut won the Westenra Cup by eight lengths, which was also, precisely, his winning margin in the Grand .National. The year before Koral’s Homeby-Grand National double in 1965, John O’Groats, also carried off both races in the same colours, those of Mr Bill Hazlett. Both John O’Groats and his dam, Salmagaro, had been sold at a Hazlettowned Chelandry Stud deplenishing sale six years before John O’Groats won the National. Mr Hazlett had intended to buy in John O’Groats, which was then a yearling, but because of a misunderstanding between the vendor and the auctioneer, the CallanderSalmagaro yearling was knocked down to a Whangarei buyer for 180 guineas. When he realised he had missed one of the yearlings he had intended to retain Mr Hazlett arranged an exchange with the buyer who took another yearling from the offering, and the youngster which was to become known as John O’Groats remained in Southland. At the same sale Salmagaro, the dam of John O’Groats, was sold for 210 guineas to Mr R. E. Scorgie who, after breeding one foal from her, moved from south to settle inChristchurch.

Mr Scorgie then decided to return the mare to Mr Hazlett, and Salmagaro became a prized producer at Chelandry, leaving the versatile Macdonald and McGregor as well as John O’Groats.

Macdonald’s major win in the Hazlett colours was the 1966 Great Northern Hurdles, as a five-year-old.

The late Mr Hazlett had scores of other major successes with his Southlandbreds, but he regarded Koral’s seventh Homeby as his most memorable dav in racing.

If something of the spirit of that day can be recaptured in some way or other on Saturday the Christchurch Hunt meeting will be a pronounced success. The field of 12 for Saturday’s feature jumping race is one of the biggest of recent years, but South Island stables

will contribute all but one of the runners. Such a strong response could be attributed partly to the fact that the lone North Island acceptor is not the champion ’chaser Crown Star. As in the last two years Crown Star will have his Grand National lead-up in the Koral on Saturday week.