Win welcome change of luck

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 46

Win welcome change of luck

By

DAVID MCCARTHY

William Leonard’s firstup victory at the Hororata meeting last week was more than just a welcome change of luck for the Nelson trainer, John Healey, who is also partowner of the three-year-old. Healey races the youngster in partnership with Wynn Baillie, mother of the stable apprentice, Judy Baillie, who was recording her first Riccarton win piloting William Leonard to an upset win at 33-to-l. Healey bred William Leonard and named him in memory of his late father, Bill Healey, a popular figure in the racing community until his death just over two years ago. Healey senior was a big help to his son when John Healey set about establishing himself as a public trainer in one of the country’s more remote racing centres. He also figured in the stable’s success as owner of Mr Richmond twice a winner at Riccarton.

John Healey has not

found the going easy, especially in recent years as fewer people can afford to own horses and costs of travelling take much of the cream from a training operation. He has just a few horses in work at the. moment but his success over the years, with horses such as Killjoy, winner of the Stewards some years ago, Battle Joy, Mr Richmond and others, indicates the expertise is there if the horses are. Healey trained William Leonard’s dam Zudini for a handful of starts at the end of her career and was given the mare to breed a foal from by her owner, a Wellington racing journalist, Ray O’Connor, who had obtained the mare from another well-known racing journalist, John Waters. Zudini won five races from Kevin Gray’s stable. The same week Healey was given the Pronto mare, a Blenheim veterinary surgeon, Dave Sim, a shareholder in the stallion, offered a free service to the then Ashbur-ton-based Turn The Tide, now defunct, and William

Leonard is the result. “He didn’t know much before Friday’s race and I was worried greenness would beat him but the race was run to suit really,” Healey said. The Nelson trainer has now set his sights on a home-town victory with the stable star, The Yapper, in the Nelson Cup next month and lines the brother to Palastone up at Riccarton tomorrow over 1600 m as a test for his autumn campaign. “I don’t think he’ll have any trouble getting 2000 m. There is a chance we’d try the Air New Zealand Classic with him but we could stick to 1600 m until after Easter. The Nelson Cup is the main aim,” said Healey of the gelding largely owned by the Nelson Jockey Club president, Jock Sutherland. Trekking down from Richmond for trials and races is not the most pleasant of pastimes especially if the stable material is not up to the mark. Healey seems to have at least two very good reasons for travelling a good way in the next few months.