ANOTHER LATE START

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 35, 10 August 1933, Page 8

ANOTHER LATE START

GRAND NATIONAL WINNER

'It is lather a coincidence that .not only the Winter Cup winner. Mount Boa but also ' the Grand National;. Steeplechase winner; Thurina should not have .begun their racing career till five years old. Mount Boa^was actually just on sis before he stepped- out first, .but Thuriua-made fivo ■ occasional appearances at various stages of his five-year-old 6cason. Thurina, with the exception of a' third in a hurdles at1 Wingatui at his first start, has done all his racing, over the country. In t'oto, however,- he has been saddled up only fourteen times, winning four races and being placed three times, so that hie record is very sparse; for a National winner, though it is four races longer than Luna Lux's would have been ha< he succeeded. His National success was the first for a horse trained at Riccarton since Eurus won the race in 1908. r At first Thurina was a very, unsafe jumper, thongh'he shirked nothing, and on a visit to Trentham just over two yeavs ago he brought his unpromising record up.to five falls in five starts with two more' failures to-, complete. Returned to Riccarton, he finally safely compassed the" full course and duly won the Hunt Cup Steeples at the Grand National Meeting, and on the final day of that, meeting he repeated' the' feat in the Aylesbury. Steeples. The next winter he was produced only twice, and a year's necessary spell followed till his I'eappearance recently at Trentham. He is now eight years old, and his full racing record is as follows:— , i_, Starts, Wins. Stakes. ' ' .. ■ ii . -At 5,-years. ........ ! 6,.. ' . '-ri ' ■'.■..-.— i At,6 years ..J.w..« 4 '2 ■•■.'■> ■ 2-15 ,iAt 7-years «.*..*»'-3 '' 1' .' 145 .At -8,-years .......«... .1 '.. 1' \ '700 !■•' :. '.' •'.. .. .'' 11 ■>%- '.£IO9O , Thurina was bred by the late Mr. W. ■J. Causland, who hunted: him and raced him in his first two or three: starts. He then passed into the hands. of ..Mr.. J. '11. B. Bell, for whom he won his two steeplechases at the.-Grand NationalMeet!ing two years, ago,; being then, trained by Mrs; J. Campbell. ... ~'■■''- 'Shortly afterwards he was. acquired by Mr. W; J* Doyle, ; a brother to Mrs. Campbell, but he Contracted unsoundness and veterinary opinions; suggested various ailments which were' difficult' to' locate' and harder'to remove. Mr. Doyle, however, decided to, take the horse to his* own farm at Doyleston, and: after long treatment, following' X-ray exarninatiohs, Be got him ebund'enough' to put him:.into easy work. This was .carried, out for some months on jhis owner's trotting tracks and ihe was given an occasional schooling task and some slow jumping;, ,;..' 1 It was only about twb months back that ;Mr. Doyle sent Thurina.1 to R.iccartqn, and he did not require much1 fast work or jumping" to fit. him for. the-; Wellington Meeting last month; at Avhiek-he^wbn a hack steeplechase and acted as runner-up in his second attempt. In his next start, at Washdyke, he did not impress as a likely Grand National winner, but that race and a solid' winding-up preparation brought him up to the required standard in accordance with the precedent set by Snowfall two years earlier. / Thurina is a bay gelding by Thurnham from the Australian-bred mare Silverina, by Goya from 'Themia, by Corinth, and, like Nightmarch and many other notable Dominion representatives of the No. 18 family, he traces back to-the Manto'taproot, but through a branch thai; is not well known in the Dominion. : , . :■ Silverina went to the stud in IDI2 as a four-year-old, and her firsts foal was Silvasco, who won races. Later on she produced Gay Jim (by Gay :Lad)j who would have been an excellent cross-cotfntry performer, too, only for unsoundness. Thurina has now proved himself; best of her foals,, and as he is still quite young as steeplechasers go. he may rise to; more complete honours next winter, for he is now a very brilliant jumper, though as yet he., lias,.failed'''..trader';, weight. After this week's meeting -lie is to be put aside until nextyear's-jumping:season opens.