Successful season ends

Press, 1 August 1989, Page 42

Successful season ends

By

DAVID McCARTHY

A number of South Island trainers and horsemen achieved personal records in the season which has just concluded. Grant Davison’s 113 winners is thirteen more than his previous best of the 1985-86 season and takes his career total to more than 560 wins. Paul Richards, the next best performed South Islander on the national table, had his best season with 64 winners and Roland Saxton, who rode 35 winners enjoyed his best season to date. Raymond Bruce passes a milestone too, Family Honour being his sixtieth winner of the season at Oamaru on Saturday. Bruce could not overhaul Richards, who enjoyed

only moderate luck in the last month, but his total is a personal best. Rex Cochrane was the leading South island trainer for the sixth time since 1980 with 47 successes. That is his best total since the 1979-80 season when he won 58 races. John Parsons was second best to Cochrane for the third time. His tally of 35 wins was below his career best of the 1984-85 season when he won 37 races, seven less than Cochrane. Parsons was seventh on the national list that season. The stable of Peter and Dawn Williams had 31 successes though official records will show two fewer as the partnership was severed for a few

weeks in October because of a rule anomaly. The Williams’ partnership had a previous best tally of 27 wins (last season) and this year’s total was made up of eighteen individual winners. Michael Pitman fell one short of his previous best tally for the season with thirty winners. A campaign in Australia with Saveur and Fly Baby affected his fortunes in the autumn to some extent Paddy Busuttin won twenty-eight races in the South Island to be next on the list followed by the stable of Dave and Jan Kerr, the most efficient in the country, its thirteen individual winners producing 27 victories, the best result for the Kerrs

since they returned to full public training about eight years ago. Brian Anderton’s 26 wins was short of last year’s peak of 41 but the Amberley trainer, Neil Coulbeck, enjoyed a successful year with twenty wins, his best tally to date. Roydon Bergerson posted eighteen successes in his first full southern season while Mark Bailey was the most prominent permit trainer in the south with sixteen successes. Garth Jackson had 18 wins. The Southland training partnership of Angus Mavor and Bev Morris (16), Ross Beckett (14) and Mickey Didham (18) were others to have a successful season.