Ray Verner took up training reluctantly to help his aging father at the time. Over time he became a master trainer, renowned for his conditioning of horses and was  named NZ Racing Personality of the Year in 1978.

Ray trained top stayers like Good Lord (two Wellington Cups, Sydney Cup), sprinters like Blue Blood and Gold Hope, and weight-for-age horses like Prince Majestic and The Gentry.

Ray continued as an integral part of a family training dynasty spanning more than 70 years.

Balmerino is remembered for a pioneering odyssey which brought the New Zealand thoroughbred to the world stage. Less remembered is what a good galloper he proved himself in New Zealand and Australia before setting out on his world travels.

Bred and raced by Waikato dairy farmer Ralph Stuart, who had bred very successfully from the family previously, Balmerino was by Trictrac from the grand broodmare Dulcie. Stuart usually sold his colts; the elderly farmer was persuaded by brash young trainer Brian Smith to keep Balmerino after Smith won five races with older half-sister Mia Bella to keep the ledger in the black. Balmerino was the outstanding three-year-old of 1975-76, proving not only his class but his toughness through a campaign that began in the spring and ended in the Queensland winter; that embraced 18 starts and netted 14 wins and three seconds. That toughness stood to Balmerino when, after a truncated four-year-old season which nevertheless provided wins in the Air New Zealand Stakes, Awapuni Gold Cup, Sydney Autumn Stakes and Hastings Ormond Memorial, he headed for Europe. Stopping off on the way in California, where he notched a win despite missing his main target, he won the Valdoe Stakes at Goodwood first up in England and, on that one outing, ran a rather unlucky second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to the very good three-year-old Alleged (who won the Arc again the following year). Balmerino then went to Italy, where he finished first in the Gran Premio del Jockey Club but was relegated that to second. Allowing that as at least a moral victory, Balmerino had now won in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, England, and Italy – and finished a luckless second in France’s most prestigious race.

As a six-year-old stallion Balmerino had one more campaign and, though he’d lost some of his zest for racing, still managed a win in the Clive Graham Stakes at Goodwood and seconds in the Coronation Cup at Epsom and the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown. He returned home to stand at Middlepark Stud, Cambridge, and sired some quality gallopers despite suffering the quick abandonment by breeders that was the lot of “colonial-bred” stallions at that time.

Linda Jones led the 1970s fight for the rights of women to be jockeys. Linda created a media sensation during in her first riding season in 1978-79; when she was equal-second in NZ Jockey's Premiership - when a race fall halted her season.

Linda was a forerunner in noth Australia and New Zealand. Her success and celebrity status took the pressure off young women who followed her into the profession.

Linda was the first female jockey in the world to ride a recognised Derby winner, first to ride winners at Ellerslie and Trentham, and against male jockeys at a registered Australian meeting.

More than 70 years after he ran his last race, the winning sequence of 19 which Gloaming shared with his great contemporary Desert Gold remains the New Zealand record. But for an unexpected defeat by Thespian – a horse he trounced at his next start – as a six-year-old, Gloaming would in fact have won 29 in a row. By the end of his marvellous career, Gloaming had raced 67 times, won 57 times, run nine seconds – and taken no part in the only race in which he was unplaced. Trained by Dick Mason for a new patron, the Canterbury station-holder George Dean Greenwood, Gloaming (The Welkin-Light) was taken back to Australia, where he was bred, to have his first start – and won the Chelmsford Stakes, as a maiden, by eight lengths! Next up he won the AJC Derby; then he returned home to win the New Zealand and Great Northern Derbys as well, his feat of winning three Derbys unprecedented at that time. His class thoroughly established, Gloaming was to cross and re-cross the Tasman no fewer than 15 times over the next four seasons. On separate visits to Australia, year after year, he met and matched the latest champ… Poitrel and Beauford, Heroic and Ballymena. Gloaming closed out his career at Hastings, the course which was to launch latter-day champions 75 years on. The oldtimer fought a memorable match race with a brilliant sprinter named The Hawk, then a six-year-old at the height of his powers – and beat him.

Race Record:
67 starts, 57 wins, 9 seconds

Gloaming was sponsored by the specialty bloodstock publication - Australasian Turf Monthly.

Hard to credit nowadays, but the Waikato was something of a breeding backwater back in the 1930s when Seton Otway decided to broaden his breeding interests by standing a stallion or two.

His former dairy farm became Trelawney Stud and in 1935 he imported a stallion named Foxbridge who not only set Trelawney Stud on the path to fame but, almost single-handedly, turned the Waikato region’s previously modest status around. A two-year-old filly named Foxmond, at Te Rapa in November 1938, was Foxbridge’s first winner. The following season Foxbridge was sixth on the New Zealand sires’ premiership and with his third crop; in 1940-41 he was clearly on top. It was a position he was to hold for the entire decade; for 11 consecutive seasons in fact, a degree of dominance no other stallion in New Zealand’s history has been able to match.

Because of World War II, very few of Foxbridge’s progeny raced in Australia. Yet their earnings at the time of his death were a British Empire record. The progeny of Foxbridge were incredibly versatile. He had two-year-old winners, two-mile stayers and everything in between. He had firm-trackers, wet-trackers and there, too, everything in between. His daughters were greatly prized and most successful as broodmares while several sons, with limited opportunities, made a worthwhile contribution as sires. A single day’s racing, Cup Day at Ellerslie on Boxing Day of 1944, illustrates Foxbridge’s dominance of the era and the great range of his stock’s talent. On an eight-race card, his progeny won the two two-year-old races (five-furlong Nursery Handicap, White Blaze, and six-furlong Great Northern Foal Stakes, Al-Sirat); two one-mile (1600m) races, the Queen’s Plate (Hormuz) and Christmas Handicap (Exeter); the six-furlong Railway Handicap (Neenah) and the two-mile Auckland Cup (Foxwyn).

In 1977 Ken Browne became the first man to own, train and ride the winner of the Great Northern Steeplechase when he rode the tough gelding Ascona to victory.

Two years later the combination repeated the feat.

Browne would go on to train, in later years in partnership with his wife Ann, a further seven Great Northern Steeplechase winners as well as three Great Northern Hurdle winners. 

Ken, an enthusiastic amateur from the time he left school in the 1950’s, recorded numerous wins as a jumps jockey.  He was New Zealand’s leading jumps jockey in the calendar years 1981 and 1984 and in the 1986-87 racing seasons.

That enthusiasm was to span a remarkable fifty years during which Ken as an owner trainer prepared more than 500 winners over jumps.  Together, he and wife Ann won most of New Zealand’s major jumping races, many of them several times.

From the 1980s he, and later with Ann, had jumping teams in work of a size never approached by another owner or trainer, except perhaps by Bill Hazlett in his heyday.

The consequence was that Browne runners frequently made up more than half a field and it is seriously doubtful whether northern jumps racing would have survived without the Browne’s contribution.

Browne’s success in the saddle remarkably increased as he grew older, with his peak coming during the 1978-1993 period when he was aged between 44 and 59.

One of Ken Browne’s stars was the great Sydney Jones, who had 56 starts over the steeples for 11 wins, earning $273,450 in stakes.  Included in those wins were two McGregor Grant Steeplechases, two Pakuranga Hunt Cups and a win in the Great Northern Steeplechase.

In 2001 Ken Browne suffered a serious riding accident at his home which left him a tetraplegic confined to a wheelchair.

Not one to sit back, Browne was still training from his wheelchair and was a regular at the races to watch his and Ann’s horses. Two weeks prior to his passing in 2006, at the age of 72, Ken was at Ellerslie when he had two winners including a victory in the inaugural running of the race named after him, the K S Browne Hurdles.

David Peake first appeared on winning jockeys' list 1962-63, retired 40 years later as the winner of 2,085 races in New Zealand, the third biggest-winning jockey in New Zealand history.

David won six NZ Jockey Premierships, rode the most winners of any jockey in the 1970s (794) and held the course record for winners at Ellerslie (392) until topped by champion jockey Lance O'Sullivan.

Renowned as a rider of stayers David regularly rode track work over the years – every bit the professional.

The last generation who saw him race, even as youngsters, are pretty much gone now. Yet the big chestnut gelding’s name still has power. The son of Night Raid and Entreaty, who lifted hearts and spirits during the depths of the Depression years, remained a measuring stick long after his deeds had passed into history. Phar Lap won 37 of his 51 starts, ran three seconds and two thirds. Most of his misses were at the outset of his career, before trainer Harry Telford got “the hang of him” and his capacity for work. Phar Lap developed from a wonderful three-year-old into a virtually unbeatable older horse. Consider his four-year-old spring in 1930. In four days at the Melbourne Cup carnival, he successively won the Melbourne (now MacKinnon) Stakes, Melbourne Cup, Linlithgow Stakes (then at a mile, or 1600m) and the C.B.Fisher Plate, at a mile and a half (2400m). Before that he’d won five races in Sydney, plus the Cox Plate. Nightmarch, who’d beaten a hard-pulling, three-year-old Phar Lap in the previous year’s Melbourne Cup, trailed him home four times in the chestnut’s four-year-old spring campaign in Sydney before his connections gave up and brought Nightmarch home. Nightmarch, who’d been unable to keep Phar Lap warm in Sydney, won the New Zealand Cup under 9st 6lb (about 60kg). Four days earlier Phar Lap had cruised to a three-length victory in the Melbourne Cup under 9st 12lb (nearly 63kg). Though he never raced in New Zealand, Phar Lap drew discerning eyes to the land of his birth and undoubtedly contributed to the progress of the then fledgling National Yearling Sale at Trentham, from whence he’d been purchased for 160 guineas. The first horse to earn the indisputable “champion” tag in Australian racing, Carbine, was bred in New Zealand. So, 40 years later, was the next, Phar Lap. And so, nearly 30 years on, was the next: Tulloch.

Race Record:
51 starts, 37 wins, 3 seconds, 2 thirds

It is very fitting that Phar Lap should be sponsored by our sister organisation - The Australian Racing Hall of Fame. The Australian Racing Museum - Champions has honoured Phar Lap is in a very special way at their site in Melbourne.

Richard Mason was regarded as the outstanding trainer of New Zealand racing’s first epoch. His record in what would now be described as New Zealand’s black-type races remains unmatched to this day and he made regular trips across the Tasman over a period of 20-plus years to beat the Australians on their home ground. Mason trained for 22 years for George Stead when Stead was the dominant owner in the country – indeed, no owner since has equalled the dominance achieved by the yellow and black Stead colours around the turn of the 20th Century. On Stead’s death, Mason went training for a new patron, George Dean Greenwood, and for him won a further 11 Derbies, 10 Jackson Plates, nine CJC Challenge Stakes… well, a further 58 races on either side of the Tasman which would these days carry black type. He was credited at his death with having trained 30 Derby winners, on either side of the Tasman, and he won 57 races with the great Gloaming alone. Dick Mason died in 1932, in his 80th year, just a week after Gloaming died, aged 17, on George Greenwood’s Teviotdale Station.

Dick Mason was sponsored by Hamilton based accountancy firm - Beattie Rickman which has recently merged with PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand. Please call 07-838-3838 or go to www.clevercompanies.co.nz for further information.

By All Black from Aurarius, Desert Gold was trained by Fred Davis for Mr T.H. (Tom) Lowry; the first of three Tom Lowry’s to be the squire of Okawa Stud in the Hawke’s Bay. Just as Gloaming’s sequence of 19 would have been much longer but for an unexpected defeat, Desert Gold’s would have been 22 but for a close second at weight-for-age against the older horses at her second-last start as a two-year-old. She won her final start that season and then proceeded through her three-year-old season unbeaten in 14 starts.

As a four-year-old Desert Gold took her sequence through to 19 with weight-for-age wins at Trentham, Ellerslie and Riccarton. At five she was still the weight-for-age queen – she won the Awapuni Gold Cup at three, four and five years – and she made several trips to Australia where, during those First World War years, she was tremendously popular through her owner donating her winnings to the War Relief Fund.

At six years of age, coming to the end of her wonderful career, Desert Gold had three virtual match races on the then-strong Taranaki circuit with the rising young star Gloaming. She beat him in the first, but Gloaming had got tangled in the tapes at the start; Gloaming won the next “match” but this time Desert Gold lost lengths when her half-brother Croesus fell in front of her. Finally the decider, the Hawera Stakes; and, with no excuses either way this time, the three-year-old Gloaming was too good for the mare. Desert Gold was retired after a few more starts (which included an easy win in the Manawatu Stakes), hugely popular with the public to the end.

The oldest of five jockey brothers from Greymouth, Bill Skelton began his successful career in the South Island, moved to Levin in 1964 and continued to pump out the winners at just as high a rate. He won seven premierships spread across three decades – four in the 1950s, two in the ‘60s and one more in the ‘70s – and was either first or second leading rider in each of those three decades. His winning tally of 124 in the 1967-68 was a record until headed by David Peake, with 127, in 1982-83. Skelton was the first New Zealand jockey to ride 2000 winners and retired with a then record tally of 2156. He rode successfully as well in Australia, where his best win was the VRC Derby on Daryl’s Joy.

Bill Skelton is sponsored by Bloodstock PR Ltd a company associated with NZRHF director - Phillip Quay. Phillip is an internationally acclaimed independent journalist and can be contacted at 07-846-4507.

During his hay day, John Wheeler was more successful in Australia than any other New Zealand trainer of modern times.

In Australia John trained three near-champions – Poetic Prince, Rough Habit, and Veandercross and won many major Australian races (including a dozen Group Ones) with all three horses.

John has dominated the Australia's jumping scene for many years (winning seven Great Eastern Steeplechases at Oakbank) and won what is arguable the greatest jumping race in the world – the  Nakayama Grand Jump in Tokyo with outstanding jumper St Steven.

A leading trainer at home John continues to be a great ambassador for his country.

Irish born stallion Sir Tristram has left an indelible mark on the Australasian breeding and racing scene.

The champion stallion, born in 1971, sired more than 130 stakes winners during his amazing stud career, 45 of those Group 1 winners.

By Sir Ivor out of the Round Table mare Isolt, Sir Tristram’s arrival in New Zealand in 1975 wasn’t greeted with the enthusiasm Sir Patrick Hogan had hoped for.

Although Sir Tristram’s pedigree carried impeccable bloodlines his conformation was far from perfect.  Shareholders in the horse were quick to let Hogan know exactly what they thought and had he listened we may never have seen the phenomenal successes that the horse achieved.

Luckily for the ill-tempered stallion he had found an allay in Sir Patrick and the partnership that was to span 22 years, and put Hogan and his Cambridge Stud firmly on the map, had begun.

The success of his early runners saw a number of Sir Tristram’s sons, such as Sovereign Red, Dalmacia and Grosvenor take up stud duties in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1980s.

The victory of Grosvenor’s first crop son,Omnicorp, in the 1987 Victoria Derby saw even more demand for sons of Sir Tristram.

However, it was as a broodmare sire that Sir Tristram’s potential as a long term breeding influence was first realised.

His daughters have left Golden Slipper winners, Classic and Cup winners, super weight for age performers and even a Group winner at Royal Ascot in Kingfisher Mill.

Commencing his stud career in 1976 at Fencourt Stud, Hogan’s forerunner to Cambridge Stud,  Sir Tristram stood for the princely sum of $1500.  That fee in years to come would rise into the six figures.

Named Australia's Champion Broodmare Sire for the  fourth time in the 1997-98 season with 132 winners,  Sir Tristram is the brood mare sire of the winners of more than $50 million.

His influence in almost every major race in New Zealand and Australia saw him named winner of the Dewar Trophy for combined Australia-New Zealand progeny earnings a record nine times.

Six time winner of the Champion Australian Sire, he has the notable distinction of having sired three Melbourne Cup winners, a record recently emulated by his super sire son, Zabeel.

Not surprisingly, Sir Tristram provided the top-priced yearling at twelve New Zealand National Yearling Sales, from the early 1980's to the mid-1990's. His sale-toppers include the first seven-figure yearling ever sold in New Zealand; the colt from Surround sold for $NZ1.2 million to Mr Kobayashi of Japan in 1989.

With the assistance of his sons and daughters, Sir Tristram appeared in the pedigrees of one in four of the 67 Group One winners in Australia in the 1996-97 season. This bold statistic from the world’s second largest racing arena more than most demonstrates the might and power of Sir Tristram’s dynasty.

In 1996 a wide cross-section of the racing and breeding fraternity celebrated Sir Tristram’s 25th birthday at Cambridge Stud.

Less than a year later Sir Tristram was gone.  Breaking his shoulder in a paddock accident, Sir Tristram was unable to be saved. He was euthanised on May 21, 1997.

Sir George was born in New Zealand but educated in England at Stonyhurst College, after which he named his sheep and thoroughbred station in North Canterbury. Sir George bred and raced on a huge scale, standing several generations of homebred stallions at Stonyhurst with a good deal of success. Clifford horses, trained at Chokebore Lodge by Edward Cutts, won 181,258 pounds on the turf, eclipsing the tallies of Australia’s most prominent owners of the day, and won 116 classic or semi-classic races over a 50-year period. For the first decade of the 20th Century, virtually his only challenger as leading owner was fellow Cantabrian George Stead. Both frequently travelled their horses north to Auckland to win the major races at Ellerslie. Sir George was unchallenged as president of the New Zealand Racing Conference for a 30-year period, up to his death aged 82 in 1930. Yet he still found time, while running his big breeding and racing operation, to have hands-on involvement in the production of the first official New Zealand Stud Book (1900), and the next two or three volumes as well.

Sir George Clifford was proudly sponsored by Barry and Deidre Neville-White of Auckland. Barry Neville-White is a past Chairman of the Auckland Racing Club. It is interesting to note that the first five inaugural inductees into the NZ Racing Hall of Fame were based or born in Canterbury.

The New Zealand record-winning sequence of 19, shared jointly by Desert Gold and Gloaming, has survived from the 1920s through into the 21st Century. It came under its greatest threat from a chestnut colt named Mainbrace, at the end of the 1940s.

By a young sire named Admiral’s Luck, who sadly died after only four seasons at stud, from Maneroo, Mainbrace was raced in partnership by his dam’s owner, Dr Thomas Fraser, and Bob Nolan, who handled her matings.

Beaten in his debut, Mainbrace won his next six starts as a two-year-old. Not fully wound up for his three-year-old debut, Mainbrace was beaten by The Unicorn in a sprint at Avondale before turning the tables in the Avondale Guineas. And that sprint defeat proved significant. Mainbrace won his next 15 starts as a three-year-old, all the classics included (except the New Zealand Derby at Riccarton which, in his absence, The Unicorn won), and his first two starts as a four-year-old.

Then, with a winning sequence of 17 and the Desert Gold-Gloaming record at his mercy, he became so cramped and awkward in his action he had to be retired. Only after his death, following a pretty neglected stud career, did an autopsy reveal the all but blocked hind-leg artery which had restricted the flow of blood.

Had Mainbrace not run second in that first three-year-old outing, he would have won 24 on end. He won from six furlongs (1200m) to the St Leger mile and three-quarters (2800m). The remarkable thing was that he was seldom even given a contest. If a three-year-old is markedly superior to his age group, one might suspect it was a moderate crop (though Mainbrace’s early adversary The Unicorn was no moderate).

But Mainbrace was just as superior to the older horses he regularly beat at weight-for-age. His winning margins in his last five starts as a three-year-old totalled 23 ¾ lengths. On consecutive days, he won the Great Northern St Leger, at a mile and three-quarters, and then the seven-furlong wfa Great Northern Challenge Stakes – by six lengths! Mainbrace and his young rider Grenville Hughes were pop stars to a generation of racegoers.
 

164 starts, 51 wins, 27 seconds, 21 thirds, NZ$235,020, A$8,400.

Grey Way’s first win was at Rangiora in October 1972. His last win was on the same racecourse - eight years later.

Grey Way’s 50 wins in New Zealand, often against outstanding opposition, beat Black Duke's previous New Zealand record of 46.

Grey Way won from 1200m to 2000m and was a noted miler, at which distance he scored great wins in the ARC Easter Handicap and the WRC George Adams.

Eulogy was imported to New Zealand 1915, bred 13 winners of 70 races in foal. Her four best foals (Commendation, Esteem, Epitaph and Homage) between them won 10 three-year-old classics and 10 prestigious two-year-old races.

Eulogy's eight daughters bred some of the best racehorses of the era. The family has left a legacy with later descendants including champions Show Gate, Il Tempo, Kingdom Bay and Bonecrusher.

Commonly described as the Father of the New Zealand Turf, Henry Redwood was a pioneer in the world of thoroughbred breeding and racing.

The English immigrant, who arrived in Nelson, in 1842 at the age of 19, would go on to establish New Zealand’s first thoroughbred stud and become one of New Zealand’s leading owners of his era.

Initially setting up stables in Spring Creek near Blenheim, Redwood imported horses from both Australia and Europe. In about 1852 Redwood brought a shipment of stallions and 20 mares and fillies from Australia. Their progeny would go on to win on both sides of the Tasman.

In 1863 Redwood’s mare Ladybird won the first New Zealand Champion Race against horses from Australia and New Zealand.

Convincing Australian trainers George and Edward Cutts to come and train for him in New Zealand, the previously amateur racing scene in New Zealand took on a professional air.

After establishing stables near Riccarton Racecourse known as Chokebore Lodge, Redwood went into partnership with James Watt, the first Auckland Racing Club President. As testament to Redwood’s historical impact, his stables still stand today after being faithfully restored and recycled with the original bricks; they now house a restaurant.

A man of integrity Redwood was known for his sternness to his stable boys and his kindness to his horses. A story is told of how Redwood successfully raced Strop in Sydney then sold him.  Not satisfied with the horse’s treatment by the new owners he bought him back at a loss to give the horse an honourable retirement in Nelson.

Redwood’s colours, a black jacket and red cap were well known throughout New Zealand and Australia. He won the Wellington Cup and Dunedin Cup twice, the Canterbury Cup three times and the Nelson Marlborough Cups four times. His victories were always popular.

A staunch Catholic, Redwood was married to Elizabeth with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Redwood died on 9 November 1907 aged 85 years. His role in establishing the New Zealand racing industry can not be overlooked.
 

This wonderful mare captured the hearts of the public at the beginning of the new millennium like few other horses in post-War years. Tough-minded if not bloody-minded, she had a physique to match and was able to race competitively at top level from two to seven years. Sunline raced 45 times for 32 wins, eight seconds and two thirds and an Australasian record $11 million in stakes. She raced in four countries and won in three; she twice won the Southern Hemisphere’s weight-for-age championship, the Cox Plate (on the second occasion by a stunning seven lengths) and was narrowly beaten by Northerly going for a third. She twice won Sydney’s toughest “metric mile,” the Doncaster Handicap, and was second on another occasion when conceding 6kg to her conqueror, Over. Her optimum distance was probably 1400m, at which she was unbeaten, yet she was able to stretch her high cruising speed to the 2040m of the Cox Plate, and to hold out the redoubtable Fairy King Prawn in the tough Hong Kong International Mile. At home, where her races were usually in preparation for another overseas campaign, she was unbeaten in seven starts. Sunline was twice elected Australian Racehorse of the Year and three times New Zealand Horse of the Year. In 1999 the authoritative Timeform publication named her the best turf mare in the world.

Race Record:
48 starts, 32 wins, 8 seconds, 2 thirds
Prizemoney:
$13million, a record for her time.

Sunline is proudly sponsored by Dunstan Horse Feed - New Zealand's leading horse feed suppliers. Dunstan is a major sponsor of horse sports and racing events and we appreciate their involvement in our event. For further information please call Dave Smith at 0274-931-580.

44 starts, 18 wins (nine Group One, six of these in Australia), five seconds, 12 thirds; NZ$674,225, A$1,679,495.

Champion NZ 3YO Bonecrusher can count amongst his home wins the NZ Derby and Air New Zealand Stakes, followed up with stunning Australian wins in Sydney including the Tancred Stakes and AJC Derby.

In the following spring Bonecrusher won the most memorable Cox Plate duel with Waverley Star – being described as the “race of the century”. In this career defining race, Bonecrusher’s name continues to live on in equine immortality.

Bonecrusher beat At Talaq in the Australian Cup, again displaying a huge will to win and continued on to win another Air New Zealand Stakes at five, despite having injury problems.

The voice required for the unique skills of race calling and auctioneering is surely something one must be born with.

Peter Kelly, one of the best known voices in racing certainly had a voice that carried him in both race calling and auctioneering for more than 30 years.

Calling his first race meeting as an 18-year-old in Stratford in 1947 Kelly’s deep rich-timbered voice was distinctively known by punters whether on course or listening on radio. 

Debate will always rage as to who the best race caller is and personal preferences may have caused some to choose others such as his counterparts of the time Syd Tonks, Keith Haub or Dave Clarkson.

However, there would be no disagreement in the hard headed and result-orientated world of auctioneering that Kelly was a world class auctioneer and at his prime has been described by more than a few vendors and buyers as the best in the world.

An auctioneer at the New Zealand National Thoroughbred Yearling sales for Wrightson Bloodstock, as it was known then,  Kelly retired after 30 years  in 1989 as both head auctioneer and a director of the company.  In 1989 he sold the $1 million yearling.

In a tribute after Peter Kelly’s death in1997, Manawatu studmaster Gerald Fell said: “Though he was probably better known as a commentator, I believe his greatest talent was as an auctioneer. He was certainly the best auctioneer I have ever seen.”

Kelly’s depth of knowledge extended far beyond being able to call it as he saw it though and his talent and experience as a bloodstock expert were often called into play in pre-sale inspections, advice on importations, valuations and part of the team developing and maintaining the company’s extensive bloodstock records.

Following his retirement from Wrightsons Bloodstock, Kelly continued to operate as a bloodstock agent on his own account.

Racing good horses such as Fun On The Run, Meralini and Greene Street, Kelly also served on the committee of the Manawatu Racing Club, being based in Palmerston North for much of his life.

With many highlights throughout his career, Kelly always rated his call of Great Sensation’s third Wellington Cup win as a stand-out memory. 

Another favourite was his trip to Longchamp, Paris where he called Balmerino’s great run for second to Alleged in the Prix de l’Arc deTriomphe. The race was broadcast back to New Zealand listeners.

Having called 28 successive Wellington Cups it was fitting that Peter Kelly’s last call of a memorable commentating career was made at Trentham in 1983.
 

Bill Hazlett was perhaps as close as one could get to the complete horseman.

The successful South Island high country farmer, who played eight tests as an All Black, is the only owner to have raced more than 1000 winners.

During the 1940s Hazlett trained more winners as an owner/trainer than any professional trainer except northern maestro Fred Smith.

In the 1960s, with Bill Hillis as his private trainer, Hazlett achieved the remarkable feat of leading owner for six consecutive seasons. 

Founding Chelandry Stud, which was to be come one of the largest private studs in New Zealand, on his big sheep and cattle station, Hazlett’s most successful stallion was Kurdistan.  His numerous winning progeny included one of Hazlett’s best performed and certainly most versatile performers in Eiffel Tower.

Winning the Wellington Cup on the flat, Eiffel Tower went on to win two Grand National Hurdles and a Great Northern Steeplechase. Among Hazlett’s other top-flight performers was Loch Linnhe, winner of the Great Northern Steeplechases of 1975 and 1976.

Hazlett’s best foundation stud mare was Simper. Bill’s son’s Jack and Bill followed in their father’s footsteps and won many races with Simper’s descendants.

Sadly son Bill, a captain in the armed forces, was killed in action in 1944.

Touring Australia as an All Black in 1926 and South Africa in1928, Hazlett appeared in a total of 26 All Black games. The 1.83m back row forward was also a successful sheep dog trialist.

At the forefront of the thoroughbred industry as proprietor of Cambridge Stud for the past three decades, Patrick Hogan was recognised for his services to racing with a knighthood shortly before that title was removed from the New Zealand honours list. Born in Auckland in 1939, the young Patrick Hogan became involved in the breeding industry in the 1960s with his father Tom and brother John at the relatively low-key Fencourt Stud near Cambridge, where Blueskin II was a successful sire.
Wanting to operate on a bigger and more commercial scale, Patrick set up Cambridge Stud on his own in 1972. His entrepreneurial and marketing/promotional skills quickly brought him prominence. With the National Yearling Sales his focus, his “Melbourne Cup,” he moved staff and yearlings to Trentham (then the home of the sales) on a previously unknown scale, was a pioneer in the hospitality tents which became a sales feature, and became a renowned presenter of yearlings. Leading his own yearlings into the ring in those days, as brisk and well presented as the young thoroughbreds, he knew where the buyers were positioned (the Australian market was his target from the outset) and made sure the main players got a good look at the youngsters he led.
Sir Tristram, the stallion who was to build Cambridge Stud into a showplace and an unquestioned market leader, arrived in 1975 and, though greeted with lukewarm enthusiasm at first by the market and by some of Hogan’s established clients, made sensational progress from the time his oldest progeny turned three and included the likes of multiple Group One winner Sovereign Red. When he died, 22 years after coming to Cambridge Stud, Sir Tristram had been Australian champion sire six times (only once at home, where relatively few of his best-bred progeny raced) and had won five Dewar Awards (for combined Australian-New Zealand progeny earnings). He was second in the world for individual Group One winners (45). Sir Tristram founded a sire son dynasty (Grosvenor, Kaapstad, Marauding and Military Plume notable among them) but it was not until late in the great stallion’s life that Sir Patrick acquired a Sir Tristram son, the well-performed and well-bred Zabeel, to stand alongside his ageing father and take up the mantle. Zabeel was to outshine the other sons of Sir Tristram and rival his father (as at October 2005, two Australian championships and always in the top two or three; three New Zealand championships; a remarkable nine Dewar Awards; 33 individual Group One winners) and keep Cambridge Stud in a pre-eminent position. With his wife Justine Lady Hogan, Sir Patrick has been four times Mercedes Breeder of the Year and in 1991 received the Mercedes Award for Outstanding Contribution to Racing. A past president of the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders Association and a major racing sponsor (especially at Te Rapa), he has been a large-scale racing owner in recent years. Going into the 2005-06 season, he had an interest in 46 racehorses, including a dozen two-year-olds.

Sir Patrick Hogan is sponsored by the internationally acclaimed hospitality lodge - Huka Lodge of Taupo. Huka Lodge is a NZ business icon and we are delighted to have this association. For further information on Huka Lodge and its facilities please call 07-378-5791.

Colourful characters abound in the world of racing and Hector Gray can certainly lay claim to being one of our most notorious.

Legendary for his clashes with racing authority Gray was put out of racing on two occasions for periods of two and three years, but the most notable was his suspension for life, which was later remitted to five years.

Whatever the misdemeanours were, no-one could take away from the fact that Hector Gray was one of the most talented jockeys New Zealand has ever seen. As happens with only the rarest of champions, his name became a byword for excellence; the greatest since Hector Gray.

Sneaking away from home against his father’s wishes, Gray began riding in 1902.

Riding what was then a record of 921 winners in New Zealand, Gray was the first to ride a “century” in a season, kicking home 116 winners in 1930-31.

He won seven premierships, the first in1909-10 and the last in 1930-31.  Had he not spent so much time out of the saddle and riding overseas there is no doubt he would have won plenty more titles.

Riding in Australia, England, Belgium and France, he had the notable achievement of riding a winner in his first ride in each country and internationally rode more than 100 winners. 

When his last disqualification of five years was lifted in the 1929-30 season, Gray returned to the saddle. Now in his mid-forties, the old master wasn’t about to let his time out of the saddle and a new generation of younger horsemen, including the brilliant youngster Keith Voitre, get in his way.

In his second to last season he won the premiership with 75 wins and followed that up in his last season with his record of 116.

Hector Gray’s character led him to push the boundaries. His character was no doubt also the reason he achieved the reputation of being one of our all time greatest jockeys. 

28 starts, 22 wins, one second, one third, 11,890 pounds.

Outstanding performer at the end of the 1930s Defaulter won his last seven races at two years old, and 10 straight as a 3YO, a first-up defeat at three interrupting a sequence of 18 wins.

Defaulter beat the best in Australia as well as New Zealand, winning five weight-for-age races in Sydney against vintage opposition and at distances from seven furlongs to two and a quarter miles.

Retired to stud, Defaulter was a successful sire.

Bill Broughton, based at Awapuni through his long career, was “the horseman’s horseman.” He was never, as he himself said, regularly associated with a champion. Yet he won 11 premierships (a New Zealand record until overhauled in the last couple of years by Lance O’Sullivan); he was in the top three jockeys on the ladder throughout a 20-year period; his sojourn at the top level actually spanned three decades (1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s) and his lifetime tally of 1446 winners was a record at the time of his retirement. Like David Peake 30 years behind him, Broughton was renowned not so much for individual talents or flair but for all-round professionalism and fitness. He was known as a patient rider, very strong in a finish, and most of New Zealand’s big races came his way.

Bill Broughton was a Manawatu identity and therefore it is fitting that the best stud in the lower North Island - Fairdale Stud be the inductee sponsor for Bill. Fairdale was the home of the Champion sire - Pakistan and is presently standing Champion 2004/05 First Season stallion - Howbadouwantit and new sire - Riveria. For further information please call 06-357-3686.

Going into a racing stable behind older brothers Bill and Frank, Bob Skelton won his first premiership in 1955-56, three years behind Bill’s first, and wound up his career with nine titles to his credit, the last in 1975-76. He also topped the 2000 mark for career wins. Taller than his stocky oldest brother, Bob had a different riding style; high in the saddle and, often, with a loop on the rein. Horses “went” for him and he was a great judge of pace, notching more two-mile (3200m) wins than any other rider in Australasian history that we’ve been able to discover. He was derided for his awkward-looking style on early visits to Australia, but got the last laugh when he won the 1976 Melbourne Cup on Van Der Hum.

Bob Skelton is sponsored by Northern Ceilings NZ Ltd - a company associated with racing enthusiast Nick Rodokal of Auckland. Northern Ceilings is one of the largest specialty ceiling companies and can be contacted at 09-416-9227.

The only apprentice to salute the judge before a young Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Ellerslie meeting of 1953 – not a bad win, either: the Railway Handicap on Te Awa – O’Sullivan rode for less than a decade (125 winners) before weight problems forced him out. Setting up as a trainer at Matamata, he first became known as a successful mentor of apprentices. Roger Lang, Peter Johnson, Shane Dye and eventually his son Lance were just some of the top riders who came from the stable. Equine winners also came off the property in a steadily expanding stream until (ultimately in partnership with his son Paul) O’Sullivan found a regular place at the top of trainers’ list. Dave O’Sullivan retired in 1998 with a lifetime tally of 1877 wins (at present the New Zealand record), 1613 in partnership with Paul. Dave won the premiership on his own in 1978-79, another 10 titles in partnership with Paul. Oopik, Golden Rhapsody, Sharivari, Waverley Star, Paul De Brett, La Souvronne, Blue Denim, Mapperley Heights and champion mare Horlicks were among the many Group One performers to wear the O’Sullivan polish.

Dave O'Sullivan is proudly sponsored by TRAC racing consortium which consists of the racing clubs in the Bay of Plenty, Taupo, Te Aroha and Matamata regions.

In the inaugural series of Hall of Fame inductees, two thoroughbreds that raced almost entirely outside their country of birth made the list. Carbine, who raced in New Zealand only as an unbeaten two-year-old and achieved fame across the Tasman, and Phar Lap, who was sold at Trentham as a yearling and never raced in his homeland, were champions of such quality that it was felt they deserved to be honoured by the country where they were bred, born and raised.

One other New Zealand-bred horse, in the opinion of the HOF Historical Committee, also merits that special recognition.

Tulloch, the swampy-backed little colt who attracted the attention of top Sydney trainer Tommy Smith – and not many others – at the 1956 Trentham yearling sale, had that extra dimension, that near-freakish ability, which stamps the handful of greats.

He won 36 of his 53 starts, was only once out of the money and set a then Australasian stake-earning record of 108,293 pounds, a record for 11 years. Yet he lost nearly two years of his career – his four- and five-year-old seasons when he should have been at his prime – through a debilitating and recurrent stomach illness which nearly killed him.

You probably had to be around in the late 1950s to appreciate the excitement, emotion and controversy Tulloch aroused.

He was a star at two years, his defeat of the Victorian champion Todman in what was virtually a match race, the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes, a sensation. Todman, winner of the inaugural Golden Slipper, turned the tables at a shorter distance a week later but they never met again, Todman breaking down as a three-year-old. Meanwhile Tulloch made non-stop headlines through the first half of his three-year-old season, not only for the quality of his form (his wins in the AJC Derby, Caulfield Guineas and Caulfield Cup were all stunning performances) but for his highly controversial scratching from the Melbourne Cup. Tommy Smith rated the colt a Melbourne Cup certainty but was unable to persuade his sick and elderly owner, Evelyn Haley, to start him after a media campaign, spearheaded by the Ezra Norton-owned newspapers, against the “cruelty” of running a three-year-old in the two-mile Cup.

In Tulloch’s absence, Straight Draw won the 1957 Melbourne Cup. Who owned him? Newspaper tycoon Ezra Norton. Who ran second to Straight Draw, beaten only a neck? The three-year-old Prince Darius, whom Tulloch beat by eight lengths in the VRC Derby and, in the autumn, by 20 lengths in the AJC St Leger.

Robbed of his four-year-old season by the recurring gastroenteritis, Tulloch resumed in the autumn as a five-year-old and won each of his five comeback starts. The first of these involved a hard-slugging stretch-long duel with Victorian weight-for-age star Lord which Tulloch won by a short head. Not bad for a horse considered by most to never quite regain, after that long illness, the height of his three-year-old powers.

Tulloch was handicapped at top weight for four Melbourne Cups and raced in it only once, in the 1960 Centenary Cup (after winning the Cox Plate and Mackinnon Stakes). It was the only time he was unplaced, and Neville Sellwood received no plaudits for his ride. Under 10st 1lb, Tulloch was 25 lengths off the leaders at the half-mile and he made ground for seventh behind longshot New Zealand mare Hi Jinx. Tulloch wound up his career in Queensland, where he won the O’Shea Stakes and Brisbane Cup and was given an emotional farewell by a 33,000-strong Brisbane crowd.

The trainer known as much to his friends as the racing public as “Jillo” handed in his trainers licence in 2004.  He had held that licence for an amazing 54 years.

Regarded as a master trainer of stayers, he trained 1327 winners in total, 703 of those in partnership with fellow trainer Richard Yuill.

Often referred to as “racing’s gentleman trainer” and respected and admired by his peers, Jillings was renowned for his ability to set a horse for a race after mapping out the target  a long way out.
Saddling his first winner, Lawful, while still aged in his 20s, to win the Great Northern Derby in 1958, Jillings was to go on and win a Derby in each subsequent decade up to his retirement.

As well as training five New Zealand Derby winners, he trained three New Zealand Oaks winners, and won four Auckland Cups, a Wellington Cup and two New Zealand Cups.

His versatility  as a trainer were also demonstrated in jumps racing where he won three Great Northern Steeples and two Great Northern Hurdles.

Associated with many memorable horses, some of his best performers included Uncle Remus, McGinty and The Phantom Chance, who won the WS Cox Plate from the Jillings/Yuill stable as well as the New Zealand Derby.
 

At the end of the 2002-03 season, Lance O’Sullivan retired from race riding at the top (three winners at Tauranga from his last three rides) and with every record in New Zealand flat racing safely in his saddle bags. With a New Zealand tally of 2358 he held the record of wins by a New Zealand jockey – and that was without adding the wins in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Singapore and, yep, one in Turkey which brought his lifetime tally to 2479. In 2001-02 he rode 193 winners to reclaim the New Zealand record for wins in a season which a young Michael Walker had briefly taken from him the season before. O’Sullivan retired with 12 New Zealand premierships to his credit, having broken Bill Broughton’s long-standing record of 11 premierships. All of these records placed O’Sullivan firmly at the head of his profession at the time of his retirement. What makes them a testament to character, professionalism and determination as much to innate ability is that they were achieved – or at least completed – after a horrendous race fall at Moonee Valley in which O’Sullivan’s left leg was so badly smashed that it took three years, three operations and unguessable grinding pain before he could return to race riding in 1998-99. O’Sullivan was born on August 28 1963 into a racing family. His father Dave, a good journeyman jockey who became a champion trainer, was followed into a training partnership by Lance’s brother Paul; Lance rode 181 winners while apprenticed to his father. Over two decades the O’Sullivan trio – trainers and jockey – became the most formidable team in New Zealand’s racing history. Lance won 50 Group One races, perhaps his most memorable being the 1989 Japan Cup on Horlicks, the W.S.Cox Plate on Surfers Paradise and that remarkable third ARC Railway Handicap win on Mr Tiz, on whom he won six Group Ones. Since his retirement from the saddle, Lance O’Sullivan has seamlessly turned his talents to training.

Lance O'Sullivan is sponsored by Highview Stud. Highview Stud stands an excellent line up of stallions including exciting young sires - Johar, Align and Danbird, and well established sire - Kashani. Highview welcomes your enquiries. Please phone Brent Gillovic on 07-825-2649.

Other jockeys bettered Grenville's lifetime tally of 1,278 wins, but none equalled his popularity with the public. Grenville had charisma. Twenty years after Grenville Hughes retired from race riding, he was a guest on Radio Pacific. The switchboard was jammed with calls all afternoon.

A master stylist and judge of pace, Grenville excelled in weight-for-age races and is especially remembered for his partnership with chestnut champion Mainbrace – another Hall of Fame inductee - on whom he won 23 races from 24 rides.

During a career constantly impeded by unsoundness, Kindergarten (Kincardine-Valadore) raced till he was nine but had just 35 starts. He won 25 of them, including among his wins three of the greatest weight-carrying performances of his or any era.
Unarguably the best three-year-old of 1940-41, when he won the last 10 of his 13 starts, Kindergarten lined up at that age in the ARC Easter Handicap. No respecter of youth, handicapper Frank McManemin gave the three-year-old 9st 11lb (62kg). That was 16lb – about seven kg – above weight-for-age. Near the back of a capacity field in the running, Kindergarten stormed home to win the big mile by a head. Two days later he won the Great Northern St Leger at a mile and three-quarters (2800m). After breaking down in Australia and missing most of his four-year-old season, Kindergarten was patched up to tackle the Easter again, this time with 10st 3lb (65kg). Again he came from near last to win. In the spring of 1942, a Melbourne Cup bid was planned for a five-year-old Kindergarten. But the dangers and uncertainties of wartime shipping kept him at home and, on a seemingly light preparation, he tackled the Auckland Cup instead under 10st 2lb (64.5kg). In the hands of Bert Ellis, Kindergarten took the lead under his big weight five furlongs (1000m) from home, dropped the bit again, then accelerated away in the straight to win by five lengths.
Though Kindergarten never got the chance to prove his class in Australia, the opinion held of him by the Melbourne handicapper can be ascertained. For three successive Melbourne Cups he accorded Kindergarten top weight at 9st 10lb, 9st 13lb and 10st 6lb respectively. Let 30-year handicapper Frank McManemin pass verdict: “The best horse I ever handicapped was Kindergarten. Not only that, he was the best horse I have ever seen.”

Race Record:
35 starts, 25 wins, 3 thirds

Cambridge Stud is the proud inductee sponsor of Kindergarten. Cambridge Stud is the premier privately owned and operated stud farm in the world and presently stands the Champion sire - Zabeel, Stravinsky and new sires - Keeper, One Cool Cat and Viking Ruler. For further information please call 07-827-7887

George Gatenby Stead was 12 times leading owner in the 1890s and early 1900s, but this conveys only a part of the influence he wielded on New Zealand racing in the early days. He was treasurer of the Canterbury Jockey Club for more than 30 years and chairman from the turn of the century, at a time when the strength of New Zealand racing was very much based in Canterbury. Active in the formation of the Racing Conference, he was much involved in the formation of a uniform set of rules throughout the country, and oversaw the building of a railway line from the main line to Riccarton racecourse. At first a leviathan punter, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the totalisator and was played a leading role in moving New Zealand racing to an all-totalisator structure. With only two trainers – David Jones and Dick Mason – during a 30-year period, Stead raced many of the best gallopers of his era and won all the country’s feature races on numerous occasions. He also made some stunningly successful raids on Sydney racing. He was a fearless buyer of bloodstock, but also imported some significant stallions and broodmares to New Zealand.

George Stead was proudly sponsored by the Canterbury Jockey Club - the premier racing club in the South Island. Stead is recognised as the founder of the Canterbury Jockey Club.

A colourful character named Dan O’Brien bought the Musket colt he first named Mauser and then renamed Carbine at a Sylvia Park, Auckland, auction for 625 guineas. He was unbeaten in five New Zealand starts at two, and O’Brien took him to Melbourne as a spring three-year-old to race in the VRC Derby. Narrowly beaten – he was reputedly beaten by the jockey’s over-confidence – in the Derby, he won two races in Melbourne for O’Brien before being bought for 3000 pounds by Australian sportsman Donald Wallace. For Wallace he became the first true champion of Australian racing, transcending Victorian/New South Wales rivalries. He started 43 times for 33 wins, six seconds and three thirds, his stake earnings of 29,626 pounds a record for more than 20 years. The apogee of his racing career was the 1890 Melbourne Cup, which he won over a record field (38), with a record weight (10st 5lb, or 66kg) in record time. No horse had previously won with as much weight; no horse has since, in more than a hundred years. In the closing stages Carbine outfinished a lightweight named Highborn, to whom he was conceding 3st 11lb, or 24kg. Highborn later won the Sydney Cup with 9st 3lb! Carbine went to stud for four years in Australia, and sired the winners of more than 200 races. Then he was sold privately to the Duke of Portland, and, despite standing in England alongside the great St Simon, founded the triple Derby-winning dynasty of Spearmint, Spion Kop and Felstead. His blood flows through the veins of Nearco, Hyperion and all their great descendants.

Race Record:
43 starts, 33 wins, 6 seconds, 3 thirds.
Prizemoney:
29,626 pounds (a record for over 20 years)

Carbine was kindly sponsored by the Chianti Stallion Partnership. Chianti is an Irish bred 1998 bay stallion by Danehill from Sabbah. He stands at Te Runga Stud, Pukekohe. For further details contact Wayne Larsen (Studmaster) at 027-497-5115 or refer to websites www.terungastud.co.nz or www.chianti.co.nz.

Controversy was to haunt Rising Fast for much of his career, yet this son of Alonzo and Faster was undoubtedly one of the best stayers and middle-distance gallopers that ever graced the Australasian turf. Bought at a Trentham sale by a Whakatane accountant, Leicester Spring, Rising Fast was put with Cambridge trainer Jack Winder and, after a quiet three-year-old season which yielded four wins and a couple of placings from eight starts, he was set as a four-year-old for the Royal Auckland Cup of 1953. Then trainer, jockey and indeed the horse were put out after he was allegedly not ridden on his merits in the Te Awamutu Cup. And, though the horse was reinstated on appeal, he never raced in New Zealand again. Trained now by Ivan Tucker, Rising Fast was set for the 1954 Melbourne Cup. He won three of five lead-up races in Melbourne, then successively won the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, MacKinnon Stakes and, under 9st 5lb (59.5kg), the Melbourne Cup. For good measure, on the final day at Flemington, he added the C.B.Fisher Plate to his tally.

The hoodoo struck again when Rising Fast returned home and Ivan Tucker was suspended after one of his team returned a positive test. Rising Fast was sent to Melbourne trainer Fred Hoysted. His lead-up form in the spring of 1955 wasn’t as good as the previous year – until he charged to victory under 9st 10lb (61.5kg) in the Caulfield Cup. Rising Fast was an odds-on favourite to complete the never-achieved “double-double” – two Caulfield Cups and two Melbourne Cups. He struck all the interference going in a rough-house Melbourne Cup and still went under by only three-quarters of a length to Toporoa, carrying 34lb less.

Toporoa’s rider, Neville Sellwood, was afterwards suspended for two months for failing to prevent Toporoa boring out on the champion. Rising Fast tried the Melbourne Cup one more time, the following year, and ran a valiant fifth under 10st 2lb (64.5kg).

40 starts, 17 wins (six at Group One), 10 seconds, 2 thirds. NZ$3,411,682, A$625,000

Horlicks, by Three Legs out of Malt, won 17 of her 40 starts, chalking up six Group One victories in three countries. She won both the million-dollar DB Draught Classic and the New Zealand Stakes twice.

In the spring of 1989 she won the weight-for-age Mackinnon Stakes at Flemington and followed it up three weeks later with a win in the $3 million Japan Cup (2400m) in world record time for trainers Dave and Paul O'Sullivan.

She was retired from racing the following year, with career earnings of $A3.2 million.

A super  mare on the track, Horlicks later became a very successful broodmare. At stud she left 13 foals with Brew, the winner of the Melbourne Cup in 2000, the most notable. One of her daughters, Latte, produced the 2007 AJC Australian Derby winner Fiumicino

Horlicks died peacefully at Cambridge stud in August 2011 and is buried at her owner breeder Graham de Gruchy’s Hawke’s Bay property.