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DOUNREAY - Mystery Mare

There was quite a kerfuffle when a horse called Angelo Dundee arrived on the scene in the late 1970s bred by Brian Saunders brother, Gavin, and the first top winner for trainer Brian. He went to the edge of Cup class before being sold to the US.

The talk was all around his dam, Dounreay, who was by a thoroughbred stallion, registered as Dean but officially of unknown breeding. Thoroughbred blood was accepted in pedigrees in earlier eras but was a real novelty in the late 1970s.

Angelo Dundee, a big strapping sort by the smart My Chief horse Indecision, did not race until he was five but then set about making his mark. Back in his maternal family was a half-sister to Johnny Globe's dam Sandfast who left the smart trotter Widower Scott. But a top intermediate pacer by a disappointing stallion from a failed broodmare sired by a galloper. What were the odds?

Dounreay, apparently an only foal, spent quite a few years going to Janice Orr's stallion Lighterman Tom(who lived to be 41 but was not noted for much else) so while Gavin Saunders seemed to have the right recipe, no dish of the same quality subsequently appeared.

Credit: David McCarthy writing in Harnessed June 2016