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The Winter Quiz of HARNESS RACING GREATS A-Z


Gammalite

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1 hour ago, Gammalite said:

Some great 'S' for Supreme Squaregaiters on this Sunny Sunday quiz.

Who can think of any of these from the clue..

Q1/ horse Number one under the Sun is indeed the best there is under the Sun at the moment. A fine son indeed.

Q2/ This great trotter admired by many it seems , and made a great impact breeding as well from Roydon Lodge.

Q3/ A trotter who just like the Aussie great Maori's Idol,  was that good he took on the Pacer's on occasion.

Q4/ This old boy was a great in the south island , then a great in the north island afterwards and along the way won 10 out of 20 Australian starts too. finished his career trying to come off 75m his last 2 starts back in SI again.

Q5/ A rocket of a mare, that Wolfie often drove for an owner trainer who won the Rowe by many lengths in the slop one year.

Q6/ The real pocket rocket who thrilled crowds with his sharp excelleration and went toe to toe with an Aussie Interdominion Hall of fame mare on more than one occasion.

Q7/ This guy a double S named horse, with his neck stuck out straight as he did , won a great Southern Star for NZ 

and Some Aussie to of given it a shake in the shaky isles ......

Q8/ Graeme Lang a supreme trainer of trotters brought over the best one for the Aucklanders to admire. And didn't she just play with them ..

Q9/ Like the Q8 horseabove , this bloke an Interdominion Trotting Hall of Famer !! along with Pride of Petite and Take A Moment. even though NZ bred , he was trained out of Aus to stop the kiwi Inter domination.

Q10/ a tricky finishing one, this mare was looking for glory in NZ , but a Richard Brosnan masterclass on his great trotter,  meant she was destined to only run a place at Addington.

 

1. Sundee's Son

2.Sundon

3.Scotch Tar

4. ? Mind blank

5. 

6. Sir Castleton

7.

8. Scotch Notch

9.

10. Silken

I have seen most of these trotters... brilliant...

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2 minutes ago, Davis said:

1. Sundee's Son

2.Sundon

3.Scotch Tar

4. ? Mind blank

5. 

6. Sir Castleton

7.

8. Scotch Notch

9.

10. Silken

I have seen most of these trotters... brilliant..

Yes a handy lot . Greyhound and Blackie were cleaning up the gaps from your selections here.

Q4/ Stormy Morn had a very long career. saw him win many for Tony Perucich in the north, after starting out south.

Q5/ Special Pride had a short but good career. including a Rowe Cup .

Q7/ Speeding Spur for the Dickies, with his distinctive unusual head carry . Nose up . here's a pic.

1468827071874.jpg.15c17a2568b5e0c36de05679a2b44b35.jpg

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18 minutes ago, Blackie said:

Q9 . Sundon's Gift

NZ born & raised, only won one race in NZ, but it was a goody, Rowe Cup

A son of a gun combo !  Chris Lang (son of Graeme a great trotting trainer) training  , and Sundons Gift (son of the Nz great horse Sundon)

 

43 minutes ago, greyhound said:

5. Special pride

Bonus 'S' question .!!! Special Pride was the mum of another brilliant 'S' trotter who won the trotter's Interdominion actually and a heap of races for the McGowan family . Who was he?

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14 minutes ago, Gammalite said:

 

Bonus 'S' question .!!! Special Pride was the mum of another brilliant 'S' trotter who won the trotter's Interdominion actually and a heap of races for the McGowan family . Who was he?

Surprisingly,Dave McGowan only drove Special Force ONCE during his NZ Career.Regular Reinsman was fellow Pukekohe based Todd MacFarlane,who saluted in The Interdom Victory.

For South Island campaigns,Colin DeFilipi took over in the sulky.

Following an Aussie Trip,Brent Mangos became regular Northern Driver,and Junior Driver Nicole Molander (to become future Aussie) also had a winning drive.

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21 hours ago, Blackie said:

If(haha) Sundon makes the cut, I’ve got an insider story on his Dominion win… but till then, my lips are sealed.

Sundon ran last in the 1990 Trot Interdominion Grand Final for Fred. Is there an insider story what went wrong that day? just wondering what happened. Real Force and Peter Davis took victory.

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2 minutes ago, Taupiri Wonder said:

Surprisingly,Dave McGowan only drove Special Force ONCE during his NZ Career.Regular Reinsman was fellow Pukekohe based Todd MacFarlane,who saluted in The Interdom Victory.

For South Island campaigns,Colin DeFilipi took over in the sulky.

And another great twist. When SPECIAL FORCE won his Auckland Interdominion with Todd driving in 1999, Colin DeFilippi ran 2nd in Grand Final driving AFRICA for Mark Purdon. 

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1 hour ago, Gammalite said:

Sundon ran last in the 1990 Trot Interdominion Grand Final for Fred. Is there an insider story what went wrong that day? just wondering what happened. Real Force and Peter Davis took victory.

Can't really remember that race, I'm guessing he may of got stirred up behind the mobile like he could do. Real Force had been going good races as I remember and probably deserved it.

The first time Peter Jones ever sat behind Sundon was his winning Dominion . Sir Roy McKenzie rang him up to see if he could drive him, he said yes but does Fred know? Sir Roy said he'll tell him, I think Fred got suspended anyway for giving him a quiet one on Cup Day.

The Dominion comes and P Jones wondered what he has struck, Sundon grabbed the bit in the prelim and took off and it took all of P Jones's skill to get him back to him(he was actually down to his last resort and just yelled "WHOA").

Around at the start he grabbed the bit again, P Jones headed him towards the outside fence, Sundon was blind to it( all the horsemen here will know what I mean), and clocked himself a real beaut on a concrete post. Sundon from that point walks around like a lamb, lines up like a toff, steps brilliantly to lead after a quarter, waltz's around on two threads of cotton and wins easily. P Jones maintains the clock on the head certainly didn't hurt his chances.

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Q4/ Stormy Morn had a very long career. saw him winmany for Tony Perucich in the north, after starting outsouth.
 

Tony Perucich one of the good guys, started down here in Canterbury, Rangiora, next to the racecourse.Use to be a jockey. He had good 2yr old in Trio, who just happened to be born in Lord Module’s year. Gave a young enthusiast his first steer😁

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3 hours ago, paleface adios said:

smokin up

A true star of the track Paleface !! here he is celebrating a Big win at Auckland.

But in true Aussie tradition (e.g Junior's Image at Addington) had this race taken off him for a positive swab lol.

You know how us Aussies like to 'Tank -up' when away at the shaky isles for a holiday !! hahaha 

harness-racing--smoken-up-wins-interdominion-pacer-1.jpg

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33 minutes ago, barry said:

Craig Edmonds drove Special Pride to quite a few wins when he was based at Hutt Park

Hey I see she had a crack at the Hawera Cup too, against the pacers. The master Wolfie at the helm.

Came up just short unfortunately , running 2nd to one of Charlie Hunter's in one of those NZ monster sized fields , and off 30m handicap too. 

Race 7 - Hawera Trotting Cup, $3500, C3 & FASTER HANDICAP PACE, 3200m

 

Weather:
Fine
Track:
Soft  (Hawera Racecourse - Grass)
 
SHOW STIPES
Participants for Race 7: Hawera Trotting Cup
Place Book Horse Barrier Hcap Stakes Fav Time Margin Driver Trainer
1 11 Turf Lord   10m 2,100.00 8/9 4-49.9   Barry J Anderson Charlie Hunter & Garry Smith
2 18 Special Pride (T)   30m 640.00 3/2     P T Wolfenden MBE  
3 12 Adios Lobell   10m 320.00 4/4     K D Townley  
4 13 Gipsy Command   10m 160.00 10/8     A G Herlihy MNZM (J)  
5 1 Pakawhai   fr 20.00 7/6        
6 2 All Action(1974)   fr 20.00 5/5        
7 14 Rowandale   10m 20.00 12/12        
8 15 Royal Belmont   10m 20.00 9/10        
9 3 Sidi Rezegh   fr 20.00 6/7        
10 4 Heritor   fr 20.00 18/18        
11 5 Sleepy Hollow(1972)   fr 20.00 16/14        
12 6 Surprise Lady   fr 20.00 13/13        
13 7 Raleigh Streak   fr 20.00 11/11        
14 20 Sly Master   50m 20.00 2/1        
15 19 Wenona Scott   30m 20.00 17/17        
16 8 Final Dee   fr 20.00 15/15        
17 16 Scottish Myth   10m 20.00 1/3        
18 17 Waitere   20m 20.00 14/16
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I think the trotting fields had more depth back then to Gamma. Sure, there were the stand outs and champions including Basil Dean, Sir Castleton, Scotch Notch, Even Speed, Stormy Morn. But there were also a lot of consist horses that never went a bad race, the likes of Waipounamu, About Now, many more. Then there were the wayward characters, Diogenes, Southern Comfort, who on their day could beat any horse. You were a lucky punter if you picked their night as they always paid big money...

 

In latter years one horse has tended to dominated the likes of Icandoosit and Sundee's Son stringing together multiple wins in a row. G1 wins galore. 

Great memories mate. Thank you.

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On 12/07/2022 at 1:46 PM, Gammalite said:

Came up just short unfortunately , running 2nd to one of Charlie Hunter's in one of those NZ monster sized fields , and off 30m handicap too.

Turf Lord.  Originally trained and owned by Joe Hill at Richmond.  Bred by Joe and his mate Allan Howat.  I think it was sold to Charlie Hunter and then went to the USA.

The granddam of Turf Lord left some useful horses including Johnny Rich and Rostrevor.  

Johnny Rich also won at Hawera.  In those days Joe and his owners would take a team up to the lower north Island and do the CD country circuit.  They had a ball most years and always picked up a few wins.

My father went the year Johnny Rich won with his horse High Chapparell.  I think it also won and the team created a record for the number of bottles of champagne they drunk while staying at the Hawera Hotel.

They knew how to set a horse for the punt in those days!

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2 hours ago, Davis said:

I think the trotting fields had more depth back then to Gamma. Sure, there were the stand outs and champions including Basil Dean, Sir Castleton, Scotch Notch, Even Speed, Stormy Morn. But there were also a lot of consist horses that never went a bad race, the likes of Waipounamu, About Now, many more

ABSolutely !! You could Always back all of those and get a run for your money.

you can ADD in Jenner (in his younger days) , +Thriller Dee, Indette, Admiral Soanai, Landora's Pride for the north Island to try and repel all your good horses there you listed ........and of course the Interdominion winning 'Tussle' for the South Island and you would end up with..............

........ALWAYS Having Fabulous Inter-Island trotting Fields right through the 80's !!!!   

We're down to pretty much Sundees Son and Muscle Mountain in the South v Bolt for Brilliance in the North these days ? just the 3 chances in any Group trots mainly? (but pretty good ones lol ) 

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Gammalite, I havnt looked through this thread for a while but I was actually looking through some Queensland racing sites, as one does, I notice there seems to be only a few harness tracks in Queensland, Albion Park, Redcliffe, and it seems Marburg and Kilcoy, that don't seem like many, are there any others active?

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32 minutes ago, mikeynz said:

Gammalite, I havnt looked through this thread for a while but I was actually looking through some Queensland racing sites, as one does, I notice there seems to be only a few harness tracks in Queensland, Albion Park, Redcliffe, and it seems Marburg and Kilcoy, that don't seem like many, are there any others active?

Yes in the early 2000's the large city 's of Cairns and Townsville closed due to lack of funding and not many trainers left racing in those areas as costs 'sky-rocketed' for 'everything' at the turn of this century.

The 'travesty of Harness tracks' to me was the Closing of the Gold Coast track 2010. It was state of the art only 20 years old opening in 1990 and brilliant to drive on . Was the best , and in a growing city. The State government took it over at Parklands to build the Athletes Village for the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the site. I still near 'throw up' as I drive past it these days when going to GC , seeing a heap of buildings mostly unused on that great racecourse. 

Albion Park and Redcliffe would of both 'been in bother' many times but Benefactors millionaires Kevin Seymour and Chris Garrard (horse and hound) have poured Bucket-loads in to keeping them both running. They have done an amazing job keeping the industry going bless em', and can only wish them a Champion each as reward.

Kevin has raced Colt Thirty One to about 50 Albion wins and now has LEAP TO FAME , who could be better still..... 

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21 hours ago, Gammalite said:

ABSolutely !! You could Always back all of those and get a run for your money.

you can ADD in Jenner (in his younger days) , +Thriller Dee, Indette, Admiral Soanai, Landora's Pride for the north Island to try and repel all your good horses there you listed ........and of course the Interdominion winning 'Tussle' for the South Island and you would end up with..............

........ALWAYS Having Fabulous Inter-Island trotting Fields right through the 80's !!!!   

We're down to pretty much Sundees Son and Muscle Mountain in the South v Bolt for Brilliance in the North these days ? just the 3 chances in any Group trots mainly? (but pretty good ones lol ) 

Sundee's Son and Muscle Mountain top horses, particularly Sundee's Son, one of the best I've seen. But, I think patient trainer Tony H. has handled Bolt For Brilliance well not over racing him and I think the horse has now gone to another level. He was dominant in the Rowe Cup and a couple of earlier races and I can see him dominating next season.

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2 hours ago, Davis said:

patient trainer Tony H. has handled Bolt For Brilliance well not over racing him and I think the horse has now gone to another level.

A star of the show is Tony. Always has been. Fancy beating one of the best staying trotters ever like he did in the Rowe Cup. simply outstanding trotting. in time of 4 minutes. most pacers can't do that

John Dunn might get more sights of Tony going past as well , when Highgrove and Double Delight meet in future clashes. Highgrove a fine Trotting Derby win recently but Tony wasn't far away with the filly. look out John.. lol.

And don't back maidens . TROT TO CHEVRON for the leading Dunn barn, looked the goods in the first race tonight at Addington , but threw it all away late. That's too hard for Punters to take IMO. back to the gallops  ... lol

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