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.

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

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.
 

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.

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.