| PEOPLE |
YEAR: 1983
 |
| Nellie Winter & Millom's Girl |
When Nellie Boyns scraped together £25 to buy a standardbred filly named Loyal Bonny in 1935, she mainly wanted a hack to ride, but one who could be bred from later on. It was considered a lot of money at that time, more so for a young buyer who was working full time for only 25 shillings per week.
Loyal Bonny was offered to Nellie (now Mrs Nellie Winter) for lease and this seemed a better alternative to buying the filly outright. However, Nellie's parents were not keen for her to have Bonny Loyal and they told her if she wanted the filly she would have to buy her. Nellie suspects her parents thought she would not be able to raise the necessary finance for the purchase which would mean she would not get the filly, but they had underestimated their daughter's determination. Nellie raised £23 and her father, who must have decided the project was a worthwhile one after all, made up the rest.
Later on, Nellie decided to try Loyal Bonny as a racing proposition. However, when she was put in the cart it was discovered she had only been mouthed on one side. This made driving her difficult and Nellie decided to put the mare in foal. She was sent to Lusty Volo and left a chestnut colt, later named Lusty Volo. Nellie sold him for £200 and this was her start in the business of breeding and selling. "My father told me wise men breed horses for fools to race," she said. "That is why we never raced a horse until he was two years dead and gone." Loyal Bonny left 15 live foals and Nellie sold them all except for three fillies, Eskdale, Millom and Whitehaven.
The latest relative of Loyal Bonny to be sold was Bonny Cord, who was by Card Shark out of Bonny Cindy. Bonny Cindy was by Nevele Gourmet out of Whitehaven. Nellie said an American trainer bought Bonny Cord as a 21st birthday present for his daughter. Today, more than 45 years since she purchased Loyal Bonny, Nellie was reluctant to estimate how many horses she has bred, raced or sold, but there have been many top horses amongst them. "It has been a lifetime of work," she said simply. Suffice to say that horses like the top trotters Westland King and his son Stormy Morn, Uteena and her son Tuteena and the top pacers Lookaway, Speedy Lopez, Flying Dream and Gerry Junior, to name only a few, all have one thing in common; they all trace to Nellie Winter's £25 hack, Loyal Bonny.
Nellie said her father, Henry Walker Boyns, was born in Millom, Cumberland, in the north of England. He was educated at Whitehaven University and later taught at Leeds University. He came to NZ on holiday in 1905, but ended up staying here. "He met my mother walking down the street and married her three weeks later," Nellie said. Although her father had "mucked around with the odd galloper" and had bred draught horses, Nellie's initial interest in horses stemmed mainly from the need to have a reliable hack to ride. Horses provided the main source of transport in NZ during Nellie's school days and it was a seven mile ride to her school.
She said she was one of the first women to be issued with a trainer's licence in NZ, but the licence approval had not come easily. It took perseverance and seven years of applications and rejections before she was finally granted an amateur trainer's licence in July, 1971. The Trotting Conference licensing committee had given her many reasons over the years why she could not be licensed. One of the final reasons - that she did not own a racing sulky - was easily remedied and had the desired result of licence approval. However, Nellie soon discovered licence approval was only a small step towards recognition as a trainer and it was clear that there were many male trainers and drivers, as well as club officials, who felt she should not be licensed. "I had a job getting started - the drivers ganged up on me," she said.
It was difficult to get drivers for her horses. But Peter Toomey was one who suffered no aversions to driving for a woman trainer. He drove most of Nellie's horses in those early days, before the success of her horses, and the licensing of other woman trainers, gradually waned the opposition. Over the years, Nellie had received many compliments on her "marvellously mouthed" horses. Credit for the skillful mouthing work was due to Burke Roper, who went to school with Nellie's second husband, Henry Winter. Mr Roper later worked for Nellie and Henry when Nellie ran a dairy farm at New Brighton which had been bequeathed to her by her parents. "We were on town supply at New Brighton," Nellie said, "so the cows came first." In addition they also owned several butcher shops and Henry Winter was also a cattle dealer, but with Mr Roper's help there was still time for the horses.
Nellie said she had been a widow for 15 years and had moved to her present home, on an 86 acre property at Marshlands in Christchurch, when her New Brighton farmland was zoned residential about seven years ago. Although Nellie trains a small team, her stable is a busy one. The welcome mat is always out at the Winter stable. Several trainers work from her property and a number of young trainers had started out leasing boxes at her stable before moving on to their own properties. Nellie also grazes outside horses on the property which she said is ideally suited to horses. "My foals and yearlings tower head and shoulders above the rest that come here to graze," she said. She is also proud of her roomy 800 metre clay track. "Our horses never get leg problems here," she explained.
Nellie's most recent training success was with Isel (Loyal Bonny's great grandson) at the Cheviot meeting held at Addington on March 19. She also qualified yet another of Loyal Bonny's great grandson's in Bonny Fella at Addington a fortnight ago. At the Winter stable, all trainers of winners, qualifiers and horses sold are expected to provide cream cakes for everyone at morning tea, so Nellie had to provide two spreads in quick succession. The cream cake requirement was not too good for the various trainer's waistlines, Nellie said, but it was a pleasant way of celebrating success - and also very nice for visiting journalists.
Nellie will tell you her horses are "all pets" and when asked who is the best horse she has been associated with, she will not single out any one horse. But there is one, a yearling named Millom's Girl, whom she is particularly fond of at present. The youngster is a great granddaughter of Loyal Bonny. She is by Keystone Mutiny out of Flying Jill (Flying Song-Millom, by U Scott out of Loyal Bonny). Although she had already had an offer from an American buyer for Millom's Girl, Nellie said she planned to race the filly with a friend, Edith Savage, and they have high hopes for her.
Credit: Shelley Caldwell writing in NZ Trotting Calendar 6Apr83