Whistling Straits’ dashing finishing burst at Ellerslie today marked our 600th winner and – on a more personal note – my 61st birthday. So thanks to Donna Logan, Rory Hutchings and, of course, Whistling Straits himself.
Until the last event at Ellerslie, the day was looking very much like one of those “if only” days. Golden Miss had been desperately unlucky at Trentham and Durham Town had just failed to repeat last year’s Concorde victory, so it was great to see Whistling Straits bursting between runners for a narrow victory.
Other recent highlights have been Comanche Gold’s win last Sunday in the $15,000 Queenstown Cup at Cromwell and Nashville’s dominant performance in the rather more prestigious Group 2 Couplands Mile. The latter thus became our 22nd stakeswinner and the manner of his win suggested that a Group 1 success might not be beyond him.
A Group 1 event which really made the alarm bells ring was THE race, the same Melbourne Cup that New Zealander breeders used to regard as a reasonably predictable annual addition to the national trophy cabinet. Alas – no more. All four kiwi breds were by the marvellous Zabeel and the first seven placegetters were reportedly bred in Ireland. As I mentioned in my previous article on this website, we’ve got problems. When Zabeel passes on and Australian buyers forget the sound advice embedded in “Bart’s Book”, where will our breeding industry be?
I’ve made my small contribution to the greater good by sending Balladane ( a half-sister to Auckland Cup winner Bodie) to Roc de Cambes and I hope that other breeders have bred some of their staying-bred mares to stallions which have some chance of leaving progeny capable of winnning good races at 2400 metres and beyond.
Fingers crossed!
