Palatable high flyer on sires’ premiership list

Press, 8 December 1988, Page 38

Palatable high flyer on sires’ premiership list

By

DAVID McCARTHY

Palatable, boosted to the top of the sires’ list by money won when Gallipoli and Eye Full quinelaed the Lion Brown New Zealand Cup, could lose that position in the near future but he is well clear on the table of individual winners.

He is not likely to be widely represented at the Avondale and Auckland carnivals where large stakes will be on offer but his keenest rivals look hard put to equal his tally of winners. So far Palatable has produced 22 individual winners, nine more than three other South Islandbased stallions, Noble Bijou, Imperial Guard and Beaufort Sea all on 13.

Imperial Seal has left 12 winners, one more than Three Legs, while War Hawk, Sir Godfrey and Aythorpe have each left 10. The former southern-

based stallion, Schweppshire Lad, is showing up with his early northern crops, four of his nine winners being trained in the North Island while former northerner Silver Blaze, now in Canterbury, has left eight winners. Of the younger stallions Truly Vain has had acknowledged success while another showing up is Tom’s Shu which has left seven individual winners, from limited numbers of foals of racing age, the same number as Truly Vain. At the other end of the spectrum some of the commercial stars of the breeding industry have made relatively slow starts to the season. Sound Reason, last year’s leading over-all sire, has left six winners so far this term the same number as Sir Tristram (23 last season) and one more than Balmerino, which, along with Sir Tris-

tram, has had most of his success in Australia. Indeed, Balmerino is going well compared to last year’s figures. He finished forty-third on the list over-all then with just nine winners for the season.

Vice Regal and Star Way, the leading North Island-based stallions last season, in terms of individual winners, have begun the season slowly also. Vice Regal, which left 30 winners last term beating by one the totals of Mussgorsky and the now Canterbury-based, Sir Godfrey, has just five winners so far while Star Way, eighth on the sires’ list with 28 winners of $486,475 last season, has only four winners so far this season.

This is a disappointing result for Vice Regal in that his stock seem to prefer easy tracks and have previously been most successful in spring conditions.