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.

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.

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.

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).

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 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.
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.