SOME CUP ASPIRANTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 6

SOME CUP ASPIRANTS

TUIRAU AND ARGENTIC

THREE AUSTRALIANS TOO

The real surprise of Monday night's final acceptance for the New Zealand ■ Cup and the Stewards' Handicap, which will be decided at Riccarton on Saturday next, is that .• there were not more defections, especially from the sprint. In the Cup the only pair to drop out besides Arctic - King, who had previously been ■ scratched, were Big Dook and King Rey, and Big Dook's stable is still represented with Vanestep. The Stew- ■ ards' issue was left for all purpose as it was, for the three to miss the payment, II Duce, En wood, and Note ■ Issue, did not appear to hold even the ■ remotest prospects. The Cup field .- now numbers seventeen, and the i Stewards' twenty-four, Gaysome hay- . ing been scratched since the acceptance. The only material development in the ■ Cup aspect since the fields were reviewed last weekend is that Tuirau and Argentic have gained friends as a ■, result of their first and second respectively in the J. F. Buchanan Memorial Handicap at Motukarara on Satur- " day; and that Tout le Monde will not . be quite so friendless after his third . to this pair in Saturday's race. However, the Cup is a very much different race from last Saturday's mile and a quarter event, and it would be possible to pay overmuch note to the actual form of Tuirau and Argentic. Only once since the Banks Penin- , sula Meeting was established as a race prelude to the Metropolitan Meeting I has the result of the mile and a quarter handicap there given the right clue to the New Zealand . Cup. That was " on the second occasion, when Rapier - went on from winning at Motukarara o in 1927 to score also in the Cup. That year Footfall was unplaced at the Peninsula, but ran third in the Cup. In the other years since (the meeting ' was later in 1932) the placed horses at Motukarara have failed in the Ric- , . carton, two-miler afterwards whenever they have contested both, races. Last " year, for example, • Some Shamble (first) and Polydora (third) missed the money in the Cup, though Polydora, on the strength of her third, was made favourite at Riccarton. TUIRAU BRED FOR STAYING. . . It is fairly generally known that Tuirau' has been set for the Cup for some months past, and she has a fairly ' attractive record, but she has still to 1 be tested in public for stamina. It was . nevertheless a good effort that got her up to finish second to Korero in the Islington Handicap at the Grand National Meeting at her first essay over a middle distance, and she has a 100 per cent, record with two'wins in two starts since, including a defeat of Kinnoull over six furlongs at Ashburton in September. Tuirau is a five-year-old mare with really excellent breeding credentials for stamina, as not only is she a daughter of Silverado (sire of Silver Scorn), but her dam was the Lucullus —Persis mare Tuahine, who is a sister to Lady Lois and Nucleus (dam of Gay Circle) and a half-sister to Royal Duke and Persham, and who also was a good performer herself, her victories including the Avondale Guineas. Her maternal '. ancestry traces back through Antelope to the Adventurer mare Miss Kate, the fourth dam of Phar Lap, and it ' is undoubtedly on this breeding that hpr connections have been inspired -with such faith in her ability to stay - when tested. ■ Antelope was the dam of Blue Jacket, who won an Auckland Cup, and another Auckland Cup winner in the line was Malaga, besides which Paquito, second in a Melbourne <■ Cup, was a half-brother to Malaga. It is thus a real staying line. Argentic, who ran second last faaturday after being fourth at Trentham, and was apparently finishing on better than his victor, though she shook him off, is another of Silverado's gets, and • on his distaff side he is also splendidly equipped, for his dam (Spotlight) is a sister to Starland, who won the Auckland Cup, and his grandam (Stardancer), a C.J.C. Stewards winner, was no other than sister to the great Warstep, winner of the New . Zealand Cup (dead heat) and Auckland Cup. Menschikoff, one of the best ' colts who ever raced in New Zealand, also belonged to this line, and so did Footfall, who might have won a New ■ Zealand Cup had he not been very unsound. Argentic has never been too easy to train himself, but at times . he has already shown that he is a - really brilliant galloper. Mention of Warstep reminds one that one of her own daughters, the six-year-old Weathervane mare Vanestap, is also an acceptor for Saturday's Cup. Vanestep, though she has no class performances yet behind her, was a consistent winner up till the time she injured herself in a fall when working at Hastings two years back, and it was only three weeks ago that she reappeared in public. In all her racing she has run like a true stayer, and though she is small she will not suffer in this respect under Saturday's light scale, besides which she will not have any excess lumber to carry round. As a mare who at least possesses stamina, she is not without some chance in the Cup, for she seems to have done a fair amount of work. AUSTRALIAN-BRED ASPIRANTS. It is also interesting to note that there are three Australian-bred horses in this year's race, and were any of them to succeed it would be the first occasion on which a horse of such breeding has been the winner. The trio are Fersen, Kamal Pasha, and Sunee, all of whom have stamina marked in their leading lines. In recent years the best efforts by Australian horses have been a second and third by In the Shade and a third by Gay Crest. Fersen might be one of the main selections on breeding alone, and as - a three-year-old last season he proved . very definitely on top of this that he could stay, his wins including the Stratford and Taranaki Cups. Bred by Mr. Sol Green, he is no other than a full-brother to Oratory, who won the V.R.C. St. Leger three years ago. Oratory was the first of his imported dam's offspring and Fersen is the ' second. His sire is Verbius, a son of Swynford, and the dam is the English mare Gallantry, who was by Lembcrg (winner of the Derby) from Chivalry, by Amadis from Fair Nell, by Gallinule from Adelaide, by Ben Battle. The family is the Bruce Lowe No. 7, the • same as that to which Artilleryman, Valicare, and Comedy King belonged. Fersen's female line goes back to Touchstone, whose name figures in the pedigrees of so many of the great . horses of the present day. Sunee is a five-year-oid son of Australian Sun, the sire also of In the Shade, Glare, etc., and his dam is the Earlston mare Bunee. so that he is actually a half-brother to Belgambn. triple St. Leger (V.R.C, A.J.C., and S.A.J.C.) winner, which should f=peJ. . the necessary stamina on his distaff Aside. Bunee's family is one of the ' best staying lines in Australia, winners '. who have descended from it including | Patron (Melbourne Cup), Patroness (Sydney Cup), San Fran (Metropolitan and Sydney Cup). Malt King, Whittier, etc. In all his racing Sunee has impressed as one who would be running on solidly at the end of any journey if he were properly atuned, and he appears to be very near his best again now. As to Kamal Pasha he has done very little to suggest that he is a New Zealand Cup possibility, but he has yet to be tried above U miles, a distance at which he has won, though earlier in his career it •■was thought he would be more used at middle distances than he has been. He has it in his favour ■ that his sire is that successful stallion Gay Shield, whoso career was unfortunately very brief, and his dam. La Fenna, descends from a taproot