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CES DONALD

Ces Donald was among the rare breed who became a legend in his own lifetime.

When he trained his 1000th winner in NZ - Forest King at Addington in February, 1972 - he was the first horseman to reach that milestone and in thoroughbred circles, it is a feat only matched in recent years by Rex Cochrane. To put this achievement into perspective, one has to appreciate that when Donald was in his prime in the 1930s and 40s, there were approximately 50 meetings per season, plus the odd races held at galloping meetings, and often eight races per meeting. Even towards the end of his career in the 1960s there were still only about 120 meetings a year with nine races - it was the early 1970s when licences began to be despatched like the Allies were dropping 'windows' along with bombs over Germany in WWII.

The most successful trainer in modern times is Roy Purdon, who joined Donald in the 1000 Club in 1985 when the majority of his winners came after a 15 year period when well over 200 meetings a season were the norm. This is not obviously in anyway meant to belittle Purdon, who when he retired in partnership with son Barry in 1995 had moved on to a staggering 2021 wins.

When Donald won his ninth Trainer's Premiership in 1963, he bettered the record held by James Bryce, whose eight titles were in the formative years of trotting. Purdon won three and tied for another on his own account, and another 17 along with Barry. A more appropriate yardstick is perhaps Derek Jones, who has now been training for about the same length of time as Donald's career. A two time Premiership winner with Jack Grant, Jones is presently sitting on 977 wins.

Donald's story is the stuff that books are made of - the names that passed through his famous Belfast stables read almost like a who's who of trotting annals - and one cannot do it full justice here, but we will attempt a condensed form.

Born in the Heathcote Valley, near Christchurch, to Joseph and Florence Donald, who emigrated from the Gurnsey Islands in the English Channel, Donald was practically riding bareback before he could walk. First taking out a licence in April, 1922, Donald had his first win as a trainer/driver later that year when the trotter Mangoutu won at Addington. A Galindo mare, Mangoutu had won twice in five seasons and had not won in 18 months when as a 10-year-old, Donald took her over and produced her to win the two mile Seaview Handicap from 36 yards by four lengths as eighth favourite. She won another five races for Donald, including the Forbury Park T C feature, the Dominion Handicap, from 72 yards.

In his first full season of training, Donald also won the Greymouth and Westport Cups and the 500 sov. Liverpool Handicap at Addington with Harbour Light, a son of Wildwood Junior who had been around the traps prior to Donald buying him for himself. People were already starting to sit up and take notice, but half way through the 1924/5 season, Donald was suspended from driving for 12 months when Wharepiana, after winning at Ashburton by five lengths, staged a dramatic form reversal at the Forbury Park Summer meeting. The Hal Zolock filly had failed to show up on the first day, but won easily on the second and was disqualified.

After serving his time, Donald bounced back in dramatic fashion when the newcomers to his stable in the 1926/7 season included the imported American pacer Jack Potts and the Author Dillon mare Auditress, both from other stables. They were to prove a decisive turning point in the young Donald's career in more ways than one - not the least of which was later combining to produce the NZ Cup winner Marlene.

Despite being troubled by unsoundness, Jack Potts proved a top class pacer. At the 1927 Auckland TC Summer carnival, he was beaten a head by dual NZ Cup winner Ahuriri (both off 36 yards) in the Auckland Cup and won the President's Handicap from 60 yards, beating among others Jewel Pointer, Peterwah, Kohara and Sheik. Line-bred to two of Hambletonian's famous sons in Dictator and George Wilkes, the aristocratic Jack Potts, who was owned by Alex Anderson after arriving as a 2-year-old, did however have a fair degree of non-Hambletonian blood in his pedigree, such as the 'Clays' and 'Hals.'

With five crops racing, Jack Potts was leading sire in 1938 and occupied that position for nine consecutive seasons, only being dethroned by the arrival of U Scott and Dillon Hall. Jack Potts sire numerous Cup class and classic winners, among them Inter-Dominion champions Emulous (48) and Pot Black (38), NZ Cup winners Lucky Jack (37,39) and Marlene (40), NZ FFA winners Pacing Power (NZ Derby), Indian Clipper, Knave of Diamonds, Fine Art and Clockwork, Sapling Stakes winners Frisco Lady, Twos Loose (NZ Derby) and Sir Julian, Horsepower (GN Derby) and further NZ Derby winners in Gamble and Air Marshall. His daughters were to produce the likes of Van Dieman, Tactician, Thelma Globe, Lady Belmer, Patchwork, Thunder, Rupee and Young Charles.

Many of the fine performers sired by Jack Potts came from Donald's spacious and immaculate 30 acre property at Belfast - now a wasteland situated between the Styx River bridge and the Pentland subdivision. Donald would later relate how Jack Potts initially stood in the Depression years at £7 and many breeders would pay the fee off at a pound a time when they could afford it. Even when leading sire he still only stood for 25 guineas and it was only towards the end that he commanded an appropriate fee. He was never really rushed by breeders at any stage.

Donald's stables were into top gear by 1930, the year he first won the Trainers' Premiership with a record 45 wins, and over the next decade he occupied that position seven times. Among the horses who reached the very best classes, or close to it, during this period, were Plutus (17 wins, Inter-Dom Heat), Lindberg (14 wins, NZ Cup division), Kempton (Dominion, Rowe), Royal Silk, Carmel (Auckland Cup),Bessie Logan (NZ Cup trial), Sir Guy (11 wins), Writer (Dominion), Great Way, Accountant, Baron Bingen, Blaydon, Brook Pointer, Clockwork, Dilnon, Ferry Post, First Flight, Grand Canyon (Australasian Hcp), Morning Sun, Night Beam, Quality, Pearl Logan, Pluto, Real Light, Ron, St George, Sir Author, Village Guy and Blondie, the latter a distinctive cream pacer.

Tonic, Stand By, Tan John (Dominion), Ambition, Biworthy (2nd Dominion), John Mauritius, Wahnooka and Mr Penalty were all high class trotters. Wahnooka, among many who arrived from other stables with little apparent future, had looked promising as a pacer, but was a notorious knee knocker. Donald discovered his trotting ability however and won 13 races with him - shod as a pacer. The trotter Captain Bolt and the pacing filly De La Paix were fondly remembered by Donald for their ability, but who failed to realise their ability. Captain Bolt, who won eight and would have won many more if he had been at all reliable, beat the champion mare Sea Gift in a match race, while De La Paix was considered better than Marlene before she contracted strangles.

Along with Jack Potts in the 1930s, Donald also stood his son Gamble, the imported sires in Lusty Volo and Calumet Axworth and the thoroughbred Airway at Belfast and at the height of his breeding activities the broodmare band numbered around 90. Dabbling with the odd galloper, Donald owned and trained along with others Crash, a sprint record holder at Riccarton for a time. Donald had also seen the potential in dairy farming in the 1930s and purchased a rundown sheep and cattle station at Bullock Hill near Okuku which he transformed into a showplace holding. He made various sizeable investments in this area - some of which were to practically bankrupt him on occasions over the years - and at one point controlled over 3000 acres of farm land. He was a regular at the Addington sale yards with truckloads of fat cattle and in later years also ran a pig farm.

Donald was very much a three meals a day man, a philosophy he took to the stables. "Meat three times a day" for the men and "the best of oats," crushed on the premises, for the horses. "If you don't feed them, they can't work" was a well known quote. Donald would also later relate that horses were not treated "as a mob." "They are all individuals. They are all different. Some want to be alone. Some go haywire if they are left alone. Each one is handled with understanding, no matter how nervous, or mad, or bad it may be when it first arrives here. None of the head lads or stable boys are allowed to hit a horse. We don't molly-coddle them, of course, but the rough stuff is out. Firmness, by all means; cruelty never. I only allow three horses to each lad."

If the 1930s were pretty much a Donald benefit, he showed no signs of slowing down in the following decade. In fact, it began with perhaps his finest training feat. Marlene, who had won the Auckland Cup the previous season, had for all intents and purposes broken down after winning twice at the Met's August meeting and had not raced for three months going into the 1940 NZ Cup. Noticeably lame prior to the race, and afterwards, she won in a ding-dong struggle with Dusky Sound over the closing stages with Donald's brother Ron at the helm. Ron Donald was generally regarded as a better driver than his brother - in fact a quite brilliant all-round horseman - but his light was to fade as he lost his battle with the bottle. Marlene only raced a handful of further times without winning and then only left three named foals. Donald also won the Free-For-All with Plutus and the Dominion with Tan John, beating Captain Bolt, while Superior Rank and Repeal were also successful at the meeting.

Soon after, Donald produced the brilliant trotter Rangefinder, whom he believed was 2:00 material at a time when pacers had only just achieved the feat. The son of Frank Worthy beat the best trotters around and on one occasion easily accounted for a field of 23 pacers in the mile and a quarter Strowan Handicap at Addington. Bayard was just a pony pacer and well past his prime when he entered the stable, but Donald gave him such a new lease on life that he finished third from 12 yards in the 1942 NZ Cup when Haughty went a record 4:12 4/5 off the front. Steel Grey was a superb grey trotter that arrived from Auckland late in his career who won the 1946 NZ Trotting FFA for Donald, while Checkmate was a top pacer in the late 40s with 11 wins.

In the early 50s, Ben Grice's brilliant Brahman joined the team as a late 3-year-old and Donald won 10 times with him, including a defeat of Caduceus in the two mile Ollivier Handicap at the 1956 NZ Cup meeting, before he broke a sesamoid the following year on the eve of the Cup, a race Donald was sure he would win. After one of his bad patches in the 1957/58 season where he registered just one win, Donald bounced back with a number of good sorts, none better than the Southland mare Lady Shona. She won 10 races and finished fourth in the 1959 NZ Cup behind False Step, Gentry and Caduceus. Not far away were Falsehood (Dunedin Cup), King Hal, Dandy Briar (Auckland Cup over Cardigan Bay), Gildirect, Urrall and Cairnbrae (NZ Cup), all Cup class pacers for him around the same time and who often formed a formidable bracket - sometimes five of six of them in the same race.

Donald had three starters in the 1964 NZ Cup and opted to drive Ted Lowe's 8-year-old U Scott gelding Cairnbrae himself. After taking over at the mile, they left the likes of Orbiter, Lordship and Vanderford in their wake. In the latter part of the 1960s, the brothers Chief Command (NZ FFA) and Indecision -"who was twice the horse if he'd had any legs"- and Rauka Lad (New Brighton Cup) also raced and beat the best.

While he won with Cairnbrae, Donald was a rare sight in the sulky towards the end, preferring to employ the likes of Doug Watts, Doody Townley, Derek Jones and - when he could - Maurice Holmes. His last driving win was On Probation in April, 1966 - a horse he owned - and appropriately it was the Farewell Handicap at Hawera. He was for many years a keen supporter of the Club and a great friend of Club stalwart Alex Corrigan. Almost to the day, On Probation's win came 44 years after he first took out a licence.

It was in October, 1963, that Donald approached a youthful Bob Nyhan, who was engaged to his daughter Pat, and would marry her the following year, to become his stable foreman and No.1 driver. Ron Donald had long since departed and Kevin Holmes had left to set up his own stable. "Some of the owners had been complaining about having a different driver every week," recalls Nyhan, who had been briefly training on his own account after a stint with Jack Litten. While Nyhan jumped at the chance, he has some mixed emotions about that part of his life.

"Ces had always loved the challenge of a gamble, but towards the end, he really had a passion about stitching up the bookies. there were times when they came unstuck rather badly, and a lesser person might have given the game away, but he always bounced back. There were some horses that had been pulled up that often, when you asked them to go or hit them, they didn't know what to do. I well recall one day - I used to have a bet myself in those days - that I had got a mate to put the money on this horse I was driving, as I was sure it would win. When I arrived in the birdcage, Ces says to me 'you are not to win today'." Asked what he did, Nyhan said "I always did what I was told. You couldn't ask the outside drivers like Holmes and so forth not to try, so I always got the one that wasn't supposed to win. It didn't exactly help my career much at that point," said Nyhan.

Nyhan recalls Donald as being a terrific host, but he never once saw him drunk. "Often, it was when we had lost that he would shout all the boys after the races - and there were six or seven of them. He figured though that when we had won, there was no need to." Then there were the infamous boot parties in the carpark after the races. "Ben Grice, who was a great mate of Ces, often arrived full of gin and Ces would give him water because he didn't know the difference."

Nyhan says that a lot of Donald's horses had unsoundness problems due to the nature of his training track. "It was very fertile ground, but with any rain it became very puggy and hard on the legs. "I recall at times putting a truckload of sawdust on the track four to five times a day for a week just to give it a bit of binding. There was one day where out of 40 horses that were in work, I had to put bandages on 28 of them."

"He was ahead of his time though and was always experimenting with different types of feed. A lot of horses joined the stable that were not known to be very good stayers, but Ces was a great believer in feeding them glucose and they became good stayers. Long before swimming pools were thought of, Ces would stand a lot of horses in cold water. We always used to wash then in buckets of warm water - Ces said to me one day 'would you like a cold shower in the middle of winter?' He was the only one in those days too who would water the track in summer. He did not believe in automation though. Even when walking machines came along, he still preferred to have the staff walk the horses to cool off. I said to him one day that you could save a lot of money on staff with a walker and he just said don't be lazy."

Donald was still training when, literally, he was on his last legs - he had crook hips and was a familiar sight at the track with his walking sticks. A few weeks before he died in August, 1973, he had been told by his doctor that he would had to go into hospital for at least three weeks for complete rest. He only stayed a week - "he wanted to die at home."

Ces Donald presented himself to most, including his family and staff, as being gruff and difficult to approach. But Nyhan says he was amazed at the number of people who said to him at Donald's funeral how much he had helped them. "If someone was short, he had given them money, or if it was a young fellow trying to get started, he had given them gear and equipment. He did untold good for lots of people, but he never wanted anybody to know about it."


Credit: Frank Marrion writing in HRWeekly 5Jul00

CECIL DONALD

The first trainer in either code to train 1000 winners (in 1972) Cecil Donald has a special hniche in harness racing history. But a simple stat hadly does him justice. In an erawhen the Purdon have rewritten most training records, the innovation and scope of the vintage Donald years stand out as exceptional.

Donald was the "young man in a hurry" of the trotting world from the time he started out training at Addington in 1922. Having five horses was considered a large professional stable then, and only people like James Bryce had 20. Donald soon had 30 in work. Within seven years he had won his first training and driving premierships, his 45 training wins being 11 more than the previous best. He also held the driving record.

After a hat-trick at Forbury he was described in the media as a "healthy vigourous young man whose secret is his personal supervision every day of a huge team of 30 horses." When Cecil won his final Premiership in 1961 he had equalled James Bryce's enduring record of seven. He had won an Auckland Cup (Carmel) and quinellaed the Dominion Handicap (Kempton, Writer) within 12 months of his first. He also posted the lowest winning total of any premiership with 17 wins in 1941-42 when there were only 559 races and huge travel restrictions. Through that era his operation and enterprise constantly attracted headlines.

Some of the major ones:

* In 1931 he became the first to drive and win a race at Addington (the first) the morning after driving in the seventh race at Alexandra Park. Donald had arranged for Captain McGregor to fly his primitive aircraft from Christchurch to Feilding, left the Northern Express near there for his first plane ride and was able to inspect his stable before the first race.

* Early trainers stood stallions to make ends meet but Donald went a lot further with Jack Potts which arrived from America as a 3-year-old in 1922 imported by Alec Anderson. Jack Potts, a lovely pacer, and the only American pacing-bred sire available then, became the breeding phenomenon of his era winning nine successive sires premierships.

* In 1938-39 Jack Potts was the first to leave 100 winners in a season. Donald also stood sons of Jack Potts such as Gamble (2nd in a NZ Cup) which at times caused some problems with officialdom. In 1937he had over 150 horses at Belfast, unheard of in that era. He also raced and trained gallopers and stood thoroughbreds at stud.

* Calumet Axworth, a disappointment, and Lusty Volo, a £1500 purchase, were stallions Donald imported from America. Lusty Volo died from heart failure whe his oldest crop were only two. He left top liners Great Venture and Sir Michael as well as the dam of Our Roger.

* At the 1937 New Zealand Cup meeting Donald was the leading trainer, the leading driver and his stallion Jack Potts the leading sire - another unique record. At the 1940 New Zealand Cup meeting, Donald trained the winner of the NZ Cup (Marlene), the Dominion Handicap (Tan John, a $16 buy and then aged 14) and the NZ FFA (Plutus) - a feat not repeated in the 72 years since.

* Cecil quoted his feat of training the home-bred but chronically unsound Marlene, then seven, to win the Cup as his finest achievment. As usual his skilful brother, Ron, drove, Cecil believing lightweight was an advantage in the cart. He had also been severely injured in a fall driving Accountant that year. But Cecil drove Cairnbrae (an 8-year-old) with supreme judgement (led last mile) to win his second Cup for owner Ted Lowe in 1964 at a time when the various brackets including King Hal, Gildirect, Urrall, Falsehood and Dandy Briar were popular combinations with the public. Donald had minor placings in other Cups with Lindbergh, Jack Potts, Bayard, Lary Shona and Falsehood.

* More than once he produced three horse brackets in the race. Dandy Briar won an Auckland Cup. In later years Chief Command, Indecision and Rauka Lad were his top pacers.

* In 1941 Donald based his entire racing team at Oamaru in the weeks leading up to the August Addington meeting because of the drier tracks. "The Belfast track was always a problem in winter but those were the sort of ideas he would come up with," Donald's former chief assistant Bob Nyhan recalls.

* A Donald innovation relieved a disastrous fire at Belfast which killed his high class pacer Accountant, a brother to Marlene. He had a special irrigation system for his track. "It was something new," Nyhan said. "Nobody bothered to water their training tracks like that. He also groomed the track during training sessions." When a rear barn burst into flames during the night in June, 1944, only the resources of the track watering system saved the main barn. Five horses died in the fire, most by suffocation.

* In 1950 Donald who had held some large sales of his own of young stock here in the 1930's, landed in Sydney with 25 horses to sell or, if not sold, to race. Among them was the stallion Gamble which fetched 1300 quineas. Most of the rest found a new home.

* The Donald training regime accentuated the basics. He had extraordinary patience in "setting a horse up" - claimed as 12 months or more by some. "He was a great feeder," Nyhan remembers. Glocose was a staple part of the horse's diet and his biggest successes were with stayers.

* Don Nyhan used to recall how Donald would put colts together on trucks without stalls as part of their education.

* Beside all that Ces Donald was a leading cattle dealer and eventually bought farms to cater for his stock. To manage one of the biggest racing teams in the country, a stud, and maintain his dealing interests makes him one of the rare achievers in the Kiwi harness world.

Credit: David McCarthy writing in HRWeekly 2May12

Ted Lowe, Ces Donald & Cairnbrae

1964 NZ TROTTING CUP

Veterans both, Cairnbrae and C S Donald gave nothing a chance of heading them in the NZ Trotting Cup after taking charge with about half the journey covered, tramping the last mile in 2:04.2 and the last half in 60.2 and crossing the line two lengths and a half clear of Orbiter.

Cairnbrae qualifies for the veteran circle because he was one of three eight-year-olds in the field, the oldest group in this year's Cup.

C S Donald qualifies in age and ability - and with honours thick upon him as the most successful trainer of all time in the Dominion.

Cairnbrae's celebrated family - on both sides - has now produced the winners of seven New Zealand Cups - Cairnbrae's sire U Scott has been represented by Highland Fling (winner twice), Van Dieman and Cairnbrae; and on the dam's side Cairnbrae traces to Tairene whose great tribe included the dual NZ Cup winner Lucky Jack.

For Donald it was a second Cup victory - in 1940 he owned and trained Marlene, who beat Dusky Sound in a desperate finish. Incidentally, Donald also bred that fine mare. This was Donald's first driving success in the Cup. Marlene was driven by his brother Ron.

Records galore became a habit with Donald long ago - his success as leading trainer in the 1962-63 season meant that he had by then headed this list nine times, thus beating the record previously held equally by himself and the late James Bryce. Bryce's record of heading the trainer's list eight times was established as far back as the 1923-24 season, and Donald equalled it in the 1960-61 season. Donald has now held a trainer's licence for more than 42 years. It was in April 1922, that he took up the training of light-harness horses, and his score of winners to date has reached 857, easily a record for the Dominion.

Cecil Donald has consistently affirmed that the outstanding event in his training career was his win with his own splendid mare Marlene in the 1940 New Zealand Cup, especially since that milestone in the Donald fortunes was attended by the wins of Tan John in the Dominion Handicap and Plutus in the Free-For-All at the same 1940 NZ Cup meeting. That is believed to be a unique 'triple crown.' And at the same carnival he won the mile saddle race with Repeal and the Australasian Handicap with Superior Rank. Donald's first training and driving success was with the trotter Mangoutu in the Seaview Handicap at the New Brighton Trotting Club's Summer Meeting on Thursday, December 14, 1922. Donald has had a mighty cavalcade of great horses through the stables; perhaps the best remembered of his 'greats' of the past would be Lindbergh (a NZ Cup heat winner in 1931), Plutus (a free-for-all specialist), Carmel, Quality, Ferry Post, Clockwork, Bayard, Brahman and Falsehood; and he has also prepared a glittering band of trotters, among them Kempton, Rangefinder, Writer, Wahnooka, Great Way, Captain Bolt and John Mauritius.

Dandy Briar, Jay Ar, Oreti, Gay Reel, Waitaki Hanover and Orbiter were all slow away, Orbiter losing a good 36 yards, and he was well back when the field settled down. After going half mile, King Hal had charge from Vanderford, then came Valcador, Garcon D'Or, Urrall, Deft, Lordship, Cairnbrae, Oreti, Orbiter, Dandy Briar, Waitaki Hanover, Jay Ar and Gay Reel, most of the field racing in pairs. Cairnbrae moved up smartly soon after, and was in front with a mile to run. Following Cairnbrae was King Hal, and then came Vanderford and Valcador, Garcon D'Or and Urrall, Deft and Lordship, Orbiter, Dandy Briar and Oreti. Cairnbrae led into the straight, and it was obvious a furlong out that he had the result in safe keeping. Lordship and Orbiter made game attempts to bridge the gap to Cairnbrae, but neither could do any better, and Orbiter then came on the scene with a strong run to cut Lordship out of second place, with Vanderford fourth. Orbiter could be regarded as a shade unlucky. Oreti was fifth, then came Garcon D'Or, Gay Reel, Deft, Waitaki Hanover, Dandy Briar, Jay Ar, King Hal, Urrall and Valcador last.

Safeguard, the dam of Cairnbrae, was a performer above the average and took a two miles record of 4:18.4. She was bred by the late Mr W T Lowe, who also bred Cairnbrae, now owned by Mr Lowe's son, W E Lowe, of Hinds, where his late father bred many high-class pacers and trotters, notably Lucky Jack, a leading stayer in the late 1930's. He also owned Trampfast, the champion trotter of the early 1930's. Safeguard was by Springfield Globe, a champion Tasmanian pacer trained for many important wins in New Zealand by the late R B Berry, who trained and drove Lucky Jack. Safeguard was out of Molly Direct, a high-class pacer by Jack Potts from Real Girl, a useful winner by imported Real Guy from Tairene. Tairene was by Wildwood Junior (winner of the NZ Cup in 1909 and 1910) from Jessie B, to whom trace close to 100 individual winners.

Cairnbrae has now had 13 wins and 13 placings for £11,680 in stakes. Cairnbrae had the fastest two mile time of 4:12 among the Cup candidates before Tuesday's race. That was recorded when he finished third from 42 yards to Orbiter (Limit) and Great Credit (36 yards) in the New Brighton Cup last February. In his Cup victory he went slightly slower.

The result was a triumph for the blood of U Scott - Cairnbrae and Orbiter were sired by him and Lordship is out of a U Scott mare. Lordship was a warm favourite. On-course he carried £3108 for a win and £1644 10s for a place; off-course he had £640 for a win and £5747 for a place. The Cairnbrae-King Hal-Urrall bracket carried on-course, £789 10s for a win and £1975 10s for a place, and off-course £584 for a win and £1419 for a place. Total investments on the race were down on last year's figures: the on-course total was £22,503, against £24,147 10s last year; off-course investments totalled £35,013, against £35,930 last year. The totalisator turnover on-course for the day was £216,064 10s, a substantial increase on the £192,254 handled last year, and a record for one day at Addington. This year there were nine races, last year eight. The off- course total this year was £196,592 10s compared with £180,714 15s last year. The attendance was 18,000, compared with 18,500 last year.



Credit: 'Ribbonwood' writing in NZ Trotting Calendar

Winifred Matson, wife of the NZMTC President & Marlene

1940 NEW ZEALAND TROTTING CUP

Marlene, driven by Ron Donald, marked a resurrection for mares, being the first winner in two decades and also the first of three within the next decade.

It was close though with just half a head to spare over Dusky Sound and the Ces Donald trained 7-year-old was in doubt to start the day before, was heavily bandaged and was not sighted again at the meeting.

Donald also quinellaed the Dominion again with Tan John beating Captain Bolt, with his gifted brother Ron doing the driving.

Credit: New Zealand HRWeekly 8Oct03