ELLERSLIE VICTOR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27275, 29 December 1949, Page 7

ELLERSLIE VICTOR

SWANEE’S EARNINGS EXCEED £15,000

Swanee ran the race of her life on Monday to take the major honours m the Auckland Cpp, the second richest race in Australia or New Zealand, from the three-year-olds Sweet Spray and Beaumaris. Swanee has been regarded as a useful middle distance performer, but northern observers doubted her ability to run out a two-mile journey. Owned by Mr D. H. Blackie, formerly of Dunedin, and a former member of the Forbury Park Trotting Club Committee, Swanee has been a great money-spinner, earning £15,630 in a short career. Mr Blackie has a big team of horses in work at W. Pratt’s establishment at Cambridge and his wife also has several horses, including the Desert Gold Stakes winner. Dixie, and Te Paerata, a winner this season. ~ . „ Swanee is a six-year-old mare by Foxbridge from Pelagia, by Chief Ruler from Rapture, by Kilbroney from Ambrosian, by St. Ambrose from Neva, tracing bacx through Watersprite to the grand iraported mare Mermaid, who has had a big influence on racing in New Zealand. Swanee ranks as a full-sister to Foxhaven, a good handicap performer a few years ago. , . Swanee won four races last season—the Takapuna Cup, Bollard Memorial, Te Awamutu Cup and the Ellerslie Ponul Handicap—and as a four-year-old she won the Paeroa Cup. Swanee is a hardy mare and she should win another major handicap or two before the end of the season, and when her racing days are over she should be a valuable brood mare