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Bit Of A Yarn

The Winter Quiz of HARNESS RACING GREATS A-Z


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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. 

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8 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

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. 

X will be tough.

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Just now, Gammalite said:

FIRST DAY horse's name begins A,

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.

 

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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. 

 

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5 minutes ago, Blackie said:

Arden Rooney, first female to drive a NZ Cup winner

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.....

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3 hours ago, Gammalite said:

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 ?

The most hits with the whip by a female driver in the straight?

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3 hours ago, Gammalite said:

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. 

 

I think armalight may have won her first race on the grass at Westport, back in the day, also our mana.

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10 minutes ago, Shad said:

I think armalight may have won her first race on the grass at Westport, back in the day, also our mana.

'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....

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29 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

'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....

Everyone's favourite.

Not so sure about that😄

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1 hour ago, Brodie said:

The most hits with the whip by a female driver in the straight?

Kerryn had a GoPro on her that day, just stepped and never saw another horse. Trackside just couldn’t show from the 250m, Animal Rights activists would have had a field day. I think it would be a close run thing with Jim O’Sullivan’s effort in the 1987 Interdominion Final with My Lightning Blue.

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Blackie, do not condone excess use of the whip, and drivers should be fined/ suspended big time if they are overly agressive.

However the whip rule we had decades ago was acceptable and there didnt seem to be any issues.

The whip rules they nave adopted over the past many years ks just blatantly stupid and needs changing!

It does make you query the people that say that the whip doesnt make a horse run faster!

Of course it does in 99% of the cases!

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13 minutes ago, Brodie said:

Blackie, do not condone excess use of the whip, and drivers should be fined/ suspended big time if they are overly agressive.

However the whip rule we had decades ago was acceptable and there didnt seem to be any issues.

The whip rules they nave adopted over the past many years ks just blatantly stupid and needs changing!

It does make you query the people that say that the whip doesnt make a horse run faster!

Of course it does in 99% of the cases!

I think she was fined $1500 from memory, so a serious offence definitely. At least you know she was trying. I don’t think the whip makes a horse run faster, just keeps them going. On days gone past, I would say P Wolfenden & R Cameron were a couple of the best whip drivers I’ve seen.

 

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4 hours ago, Gammalite said:

'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....

That is correct, horses had to win at Westport then Reefton and then on the all weather track at greymouth, started at 20k I think and may have dropped to 10k at some stage, hunter is correct, Wilbur win trained by bill Cummings I think, and Steven John by the J Rodgers from memory, but do stand to be corrected, was many a year ago, just like the first ever triple dead heat also at Westport. 

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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 ???  

DSC02752.JPG

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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 ? 

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1 hour ago, Gammalite said:

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 ???  

DSC02752.JPG

Okay, start it rolling.

1 Basil Dean

2 Borana

3 Bonnie’s Chance

4 BAF, Blackie, Natalie’s boyfriend.

5 Bag Limit

6 Baltic Eagle

Great list there 👍

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