OKOPUA'S FIRST WINS

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 18, 21 July 1932, Page 8

OKOPUA'S FIRST WINS

.■'When' the four-year-old• Okopua won: the two hack steeples at Wellington last ■week he registered, his first, successes to date. -, --'■'..

As a two-year-old .he. ran eight times without earning a place, .and he was equally unsuccessful in eight further starts early last season: A. M. Wright obtained a two years' lease of him .from his breeder (Captaiii ~JI- H- Whiteman) in -February twelve months . ago; and he put bun to hurdling, .producing him while Still a tlnee-yeav-oldiii Julie and notching a third at Napier Park: with1 him in his first start in' the ' role. ...Two further starts, last season, were fruitless?

■ Prior" to the Wellington.''Meeting lie, had raced fifteen, times this season, all over hurdles, for three-: thirds and a: second, the last-named.. occasion;.; beijig on the. second day of the'^Otaki, Meeting in Juue, when he was runner-up to Bon Eve at a tall price. He appeared for the first time as a steeplechaser at Trentham, and his two. cross-country efforts were winning ones. Back to , hurdling on the final day of the meeting he failed again.

He is a well-bred full-brother to defunct Paiko, being by Chief Ruler from the Martian nia^e Vestalis, who left other useful performers in Ici (dam of Mendip), Euchre, Bissac, and Qrcades, He provides another instance of the ability of Chief Ruler to get stayers when mated .with marcs with a staying ancestry.