Luxury Liner earns $1M

Press, 9 November 1988, Page 1

Luxury Liner earns $1M

By JEFF SCOTT To the roar of more than 17,000 race fans, Luxury Liner became the first milliondollar pacer from stake-earn-ings in this country when he brilliantly won the $375,000 D.B. Draught New Zealand Cup at Addington Raceway yesterday. The South Auckland-trained pacer came back from a three-quarters of a length deficit at the top of the straight to beat the Australian challenger, Maestro, on his merits. Luxury Liner, a seven-year-old gelding, demolished his old world record for 3200 m by 4.4 s in setting a record of 4min 0.45. Luxury Liner increased his stake-earnings to $1,193,979 with the winner’s purse of $225,000. AH but $65,149 of this

total has been won in New Zealand, the rest coming from a luckless Australian campaign earlier this year. Last season, New Zealand’s champion two-year-old pacer, Tight Connection, won $283,240 in stakes, plus $1 million in bonus payments associated with his winning the required races as part of a Yearling Sales promotion — but bonuses are not recognised as official stake-earn-ings by the New Zealand Harness Racing Conference. The New Zealand-bred Cardigan Bay was the world’s first million-dollar pacer when he achieved the feat in North America in 1968 as a 12-year-old. Another New Zealand-bred champion pacer, Village Kid,

had earned $Au5t1,576,298 at the end of last season, having raced for the most of his career in Australia, and is the biggest standardbred earner in Australia or New Zealand. Yesterday’s purse is the second-highest cheque Luxury Liner has earned his Waiuku owners, Robert and Janice Reid and the Lorna Reid Syndicate (the family of Mr Reid’s late brother, Leo, who initially raced the horse with his brother). Luxury Liner earned $228,000 in winning the $400,000 Pacer-Kerridge Auckland Cup, also in race record time for 3200 metres, last December. The sum of $1,594,020 was bet on the New Zealand Cup, including $816,132 on win and place, and $547,172 on trifecta

betting. A total of $1,199,352 was wagered off-course through the T.A.B. on the day’s feature. Off-course betting amounted to a Cup Day record of $3,033,124, up $335,315 on last year. The attendance on a nearperfect day was down 1056 on the previous year. This reflected a decrease in oncourse betting of $27,747 on last year’s $2,311,327. Mrs Mary Coppins, of Wellington, whose husband is the retiring “Friday Flash” editor, Des Coppins, was judged the Quinns Fashions best-dressed woman, while Mr Vic Smith, of Christchurch, breeder of the 1981 New Zealand Cup winner, Armalight, was selected the best dressed man.