Gammalite

That was as easy a win as you will ever see. Hey Ranga , you are the best on this site at knowing horses soam surprised you haven't popped up on my A-Z quiz. I bet $1 you can name the best 'E' horse for tomorrow before I give the clue even lol hahaha. I dare you to post the photo of him now in advance ???

Com'on Ranga , Sheryl (the professional) not even running in this series . has seen the light. Bob Butt sure meant business with this runner on June 12th. Nose nasal strip and all (just like Allstars lol) and a very easy win for Happy Place. Had 100 on it , as looked a special lol.

Yes it seems a rather fruitless idea. And Davis is right in the lead of this thread. fancy expanding it to 3 races.???? Run as many of them as you like is fine by me (a former trainer/driver) but have them between Tote races for a few hundred dollars maybe, so the amateurs can have their fun and the very slow horses about can have a race . So much un-necesary trouble like Mrs Negus had ,when a tote race. Why ? No betting would be Best indeed .!!!

Diamond Field correct but Q2 is David Moss. Diedre's Pride from Royden Lodge was with Fred Fletcher through her career rather than Bob Cameron. Credit to John Cox too , who did a lot of work with David Moss through his career as well as Bob. ( interesting that David Moss didn't start racing until a 6 year old ) did pretty well for an old boy lol......

'D" Day for the quiz. Lets go with some trotters today. Can anyone name these great 'name starting with D' trotters?. Walt should have no problems being a squaregaiter fan, Q1/ Driven by the great Tony Herlihy for Roy to all sorts of wins . Tony even kept the drive when Mark took over the training as he was busy winning everything with Pride of Petite. Tony drove her to an Interdominion win for Mark as well as winning one with this horse. Q2/ An arch rival of Q1 above this trotter ran about 10 quinellas in all sorts of races with him for Bob Cameron. Q3/ Long Before Collabarating with Michelle Wallis with Temporale, Tony and Michelle were smashing out wins with this big NI trotter on both sides of the Tasman. Q4/ and it's Tony again !! Now he's winning with a horse bred to be a Pacer. Is there nothing the Iceman can't do with a trotter? She has never missed being in the quinella in her career yet ? who is she? And The Aussie... to of graced NZ shores. Q5/ before Tony came along Charlie Hunter trained many great trotters including Geffin and Castleton's Pride who won Interdominion trots in NZ. An Aussie parked in the death seat stuck on well for 2nd in one of those Grand Finals. This horse gained great 'fame' at Moonee Valley 3 years later, by ending a 24 race win streak of one of the greats.

Well just for you Mikey as a general Sports fan , a chance for a answer late on 'C for Champions' day. (and No it's Not the Canterbury Crusaders , even though you are a Rugby Fan. (a crushing victory to them anyway) Horses 10 and 11 have Won 2 of the last 3 Nz cups Mikey. Can you get them without looking lol ?..... good luck champ. Who might they be?

YouTube harness replays from the past are great ! and could stop the boredom. Or if you want some real 'Heart in Mouth' stuff or 'Jaw on the Floor' watch some youTube GRAND NAtionals from Aintree UK from over the years. staggering to think that stuff really goes on each year.

Barry has wrapped that up so quick (leave this one for another maybe Baz) here is another great one or 2 !! Q8/ horse who smashed out his own Grand Slam that included the Victoria Cup and Hunter Cup , which are 2 of Australia's great races, so perhaps should be in the GRANDSLAM. now owned by his popular kiwi driver who bought him out of a 'Claimer' in USA. Q9/ Sire of the horse above in Quiz question 8 lol. A very popular NZ horse in his day.

Crikey Baz , you were quick !! you must be an Aussie like Popular Alm lol.... (p.s. hope you don't mind called Baz ) And 100% correct of course. Christopher Vance beaten by Marky boy driving 'Mark Hanover' at Auckland Interdominion to be denied being the ultimate Champion of Australasia with a GRANDSLAM. Stable-mate Chokin promoted to 2nd behind Golden Reign in a 1990's Interdominion Final at Addington.

Well at Day 3 we have 'C' for Champion. and there are a few of those. Can anyone name any of these quiz horses?? ( answer one Q or more as we go a new bunch each day) Q1/ This bloke set the world on fire !!! Also the Addington grandstand on fire too while he won the NZ FFA. Q2/ This kiwi Champ won at Harold Park once in front of 50,000 people as favourite !! can you imagine? Q3/ This quality horse won 6 Derbies ! will anyone ever do that again ? seems unlikely. Q4/ This horse was denied the GRAND SLAM by a stable-mate. Would of been the only horse to complete that set of majors. (Interdominion, Miracle Mile, NZ Cup , and Auckland Cup. Q5/ Like his stablemate in question 4 , this horse narrowly missed the GRAND SLAM winning 3 of them and running 2nd in the other (a Promoted 2nd from 4th when the past the post 2nd and 3rd placegetters were later DQ with positive swabs.) and THE AUSSIES???? to of raced in NZ. Q6/ This Nz bred horse won his first 2 races at Winton and went on winning spree in the 'west' afterwards. Winning near $2 million dollars . also popped back to Auckland for a run and Won beating Mach Shard. then was injured. Q7/ This handy 'Aussie' tried to take on the Terror in a Nov foray at Addington and pulled hard and ran 5th for Kate and Andy Gath

Bonnie's Chance did some pretty solid runs still , going the Alex Park way round in Auckland. Went very close to winning the plum prize of an Auckland Cup. took a masterful drive to beat her. Here's the good 2nd place to the legend himself Gammalite in the Cup. (beating the local champ Delightful Lady into 3rd place here, who was winner of the 2 previous Auckland Cups)

Bonnie's Chance a great mare for Richard Brosnan. (what a great photo that is of her) she won 32 of 75 race starts so a very good strike rate. I like the way after in 1981 NZ Cup when Bob Negus burned them off by 7 lengths with Armalight, with Bonnie's Chance finishing 2nd. (Gammalite was 5 wide the last lap 5th with not a pretty drive !! lol.....) Richard and Bonnie's Chance 'Returned the Favour' !!! lol and waltzed away by 7 lengths from arch-rival Armalight (2nd) a year later in the 1982 NZ Cup. Two fabulous mares !!!!!!!

AND for the Aussies some pretty good ones have trekked to NZ over the years. here are 3 of them....... Q4/ Amazingly this great horse Never Won in NZ in 3 starts there. (did win $130, 000 though) and with a stablename of Blackie and with his lovely trainer/ driver now training in NZ , this is an easy one !! lol.... Q5/ Vin Knight had the favourite for a Christchurch Interdominion Final , after impressive heat wins , but this horse went sore sadly , and had to scratch from the Grand Final. Who is he? Q6/ Another Christchurch Interdominion final saw this raider 'from the Wildwest' WA, zoom around Addington with great gusto and Win the Grand Final on Nz soil in true Gammalite tradition ?

Day 2 for names starting with B horses , see's some bloody beauties 'B' horses. (but certainly Not B grade) Q1/ A very handy SI trotter who 'Tussled' often with a few like Sir Castleton and Tussle , and often beat them too. Q2/ We were talking about Our Mana yesterday. This pocket rocket was one of the horses that beat Our Mana in a very big NZ race over 3200m in Nov. Q3/ PHOTO CLUE . who is this beauty ???

'Our Mana' won some sort of Bonus over there at Westport i think. 2 x seconds in the NZ Cup he got too. so close yet so far .................... Great mare 'Armalight' was a gem, and started favourite for Wolfie driving in the Auckland 83' Interdominion Final, but got caught parked out in the death alas. Battled on strongly for 4th. Everyone's favourite Aussie 'Gammalite' taking the victory after cosy passage trailing the leader all the way. Tough old war-horse lol....

Yes the boys have had decades of quite astounding success. Alas Barry doesn't seem to have a child to carry on the Purdon name at the famous Clevedon base . Mark has son Nathan doing a great job in Australia now training. His Top class filly 'AMORE VITA ' won extremely easily at Albion Park last night to make it 9 wins from 12 starts in Aus. Perhaps Mark's Nz-based son Michael could 'Do the Job ' now there ? He seems to have done a good job with the young trotter so far................. and with a bit of staff , and the owners, and a few more horses.... could continue the fine Purdon tradition.?

Yes after a long and distinguished career Barry deserves a good back-off now these days. done it all really. Nz and Oz too. Chokin and Holmes DG were banging out Miracle Mile wins one after another at one stage. Doubt any Aussie (probably even most kiwi's) would even recognise S Phelan from a photo . Has he even won a Group 1 there?? They had only one runner past 2 northern meetings. A stable of that history should be dominating you would think and have good numbers racing year round. Credit though for 'MERLIN' to them. training him for 4 out of 4 good 2 yearold wins in Summer for his QLD owner.

Blackie spot on with Kerryn being the first lady driver to win the NZ Cup in it's 112th running in 2015. 'Arden Rooney' was an ex-Allstars horse too, pushing Mark back into 2nd spot with Smolda in the 2015 Nz Cup. Just one week after Michelle Payne became the first (and only) female jockey to win the famous Melbourne Cup as well in its 155 years. Back tomorrow with some great 'B' harness horses. Can think of a good QLDer for that one Blackie lol.....

Q6/ Bonus question for horse in the A section then, that deserves a mention for creating history in NZ, for Australian trainer /driver Kerryn Manning ? Who is the horse and what was that piece of history ?

Great work by Furlong in naming the 3 NZ Cup winners in 'Arapaho' for Jack , and the great mares 'Adore Me' and 'Armalight' . and Barry on the board too, with 2 correct answers. 'Amazing Dream taking an Auckland Cup ( as did Arapaho and Armalight ) surprisingly I think Adore Me missed getting one of those ?. Mark' team have Won the last 6 Auckland Cups to make up for that oversight lol.... 'Alpine Fella' making the Grand Final at Addington 87' for Vin Knight but running unplaced.

Haahaha.. yep X or Z will Not be nominated lol. Can you Pin the topic for 24 days of Winter Chief? Thats the entire length of the Brissy one lol) and we'll see how the boys go ?

Just answer 1 question if thats all you want . That gives other harness fans a go through the Day as well. Q1/ Jack Smolenski didn't mind winning a Cup or 2 with this horse in either Island? Q2/ With a 2 mile win in about 3.55 and a mile win in Oz in about 1.47 not many could beat this mare? Q3/ Bob Negus didn't mind 'scurrying away ' with a Cup by 8 or 9 lengths with this one, according to Reon Murtha? Q4/ A recent Champion ,now gone to the USA, always giving her best and smashing out wins with her head down low trying hard? and THE AUSSIE? Q5/ a hard one , but the late great Vin Knight who failed to win an Interdominion , did qualify this horse for a Inter Grand Final on NZ soil, whose name begins with A.

To Remember some greats of the track and of course for a bit of Fun, and test your memory. In Alphabetical Order, Each Day I will post 5 CLUE's to see if anyone can figure out the Horses ................. FIRST DAY horse's name begins A, 2nd day B, and so on..... Will be about 4 NZ horses each day, and an Aussie horse (to acknowledge those) that I can think of that competed in NZ during it's career as well.

Now racing out of the leading Luke McCarthy barn , this old boy is a Superstar that missed out on a BIG winning career. 2018 saw JILLIBY KUNG FU run second in the Miracle Mile running about 1.48 odd himself !!! wow ! and leaving 2 Interdominion winners (and very well known NZ horses Lazarus and Tiger Tara ) struggling to keep up on that occasion . That's WHo the FU is lol..... now on the injury comeback trail. Tonight was winning at Albion Park for Luke McCarthy to make it 2 wins from 2 starts at that stable . Fu has had only 3 starts in past 4 years !!!!! Could of been anything . BTW Luke has toweled the locals up completely taking out the feature with ex-pat NZer SPIRIT OF ST LOUIS (has a heap of Aus and NZ owners still , so good on them) and also MAJOR JELLIS has bolted in again 2 from 2 in QLD for Luke in a solid 1.51 mile rate. Why couldn't Phelan and Barry win much with this horse at Auckland? Only 5th at Manawatu stand before leaving NZ in March . seriously? ?? the 'silver with blue spots' is going Very Ordinary these days since the great Roy Purdon passed away it seems.

2nd Day of the Royal Carnival at Ascot, has seen James McDonald win his second race overnight at the famous England racecourse. Coming from last (with an amazing tactical ride to follow Detori in the running) in a Straight Mile race on DARK SHIFT. winning easily in the end with a jock that is riding chock full of confidence at the moment. JMac doing a great job representing Australia and NZ in the worlds biggest race Week of the year. Don't forget to Get On HOME AFFAIRS in the Group 1 on Saturday night as he wins the Platinum Jubilee Stakes feature for Waller ,Oz and JMac. JMac is bullish about his chances now.