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.

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.

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.
 

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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.