Chartered flight will transport valuable cargo

Press, 27 July 1989, Page 38

Chartered flight will transport valuable cargo

What is probably the most valuable consignment of horseflesh sent to Australia or New Zealand will leave Shannon airport, in Ireland, on August 6.

The chartered flight will bring eight Northern Hemisphere-based stallions south for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season, one, Don’t Forget Me, being bound for Fayette Park Stud in Tirau (Waikato).

Don’t Forget Me won the Irish and English Two Thousand Guineas in 1987. Also on the flight is his sire, Ahonoora, which, along with Last Tycoon, is bound for Segenhoe Stud in Scone in New South f Wales.

Ahonoora, which stood at Ra Ora Stud in Auckland last season at an $BO,OOO service fee, after making a sensational de-

but in Europe a short time previously, has been in the news again recently with the Group winners Noora Abu (Pretty Polly Stakes) and Armanasco (Railway Stakes) in Ireland where he is based at Coolmore stud in the northern season.

Bluebird was the champion sprinter in Ireland as a three-year-old and will stand at Lindsay Park Stud in Adelaide. He will be joined there by Persian Heights, a Group One winner at two and three years- in England winning the Middle Park Plate in 1987 and the St James Palace Stakes last year. Alzao is one of the hottest properties in European breeding at the moment. The Lyphard horse, whose half-brother, Norman Pentaquad, stands at stud in Wan-

ganui, was the leading first season sire by winners in England and Ireland and high on the list of the two-year-old sires with ten individual winners.

Alzao began the Irish breeding season in 1988 at a fee of 3000 guineas and his Chevely Park (Group One) winning filly, Pass The Pace, cost just 9500 guineas. Alzao’s owner in spite of his name, Liam Cashman, turned down offers of £2 million and SUS4M for Alzao before arrangements were made to send Alzao south to Lindsay Park.

Last Tycoon will be bred with 30 mares at sAust4o,ooo a time, fifteen of them belonging to Robert gangster. The champion European sprinter of 1986 Last Tycoon won a Breeders’

Cup event in California.

Magical Wonder and Tate Gallery are also on the flight. Tate Gallery, a five-year-old, is one of the best-bred horses in the world. He is a brother to Sadler’s Wells which has made a big impact in England and Ireland, his latest star being the French and Irish Derby winner Old Vic. His dam is a half-sister to Nureyev, one of the world’s leading sires last year. Tate Gallery was a top class racehorse. The practice of stallions serving successive seasons in each hemisphere is growing and so far there have been no problems. The swelling in their numbers however could have economic complications for the Australian breeding industry in the next few years.