| PEOPLE |
YEAR: 1982
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Andy Todd, the man they called "the flying sportsman", died suddenly in Christchurch last week. He was 87. While he hadn't raced a horse for some years, he had a string of fine pacers and trotters over a period of half a century, harking right back to the depression days.
It was about then he was given a young trotter. Todd Lonzia was the horse's name. He was to go on and win thirteen races, hold the NZ mile record twice and earn himself a chapter in Unhoppled Heroes, a book on our top trotters, soon to be published by Christchurch writer Dave Cannan. The young trotter wasn't Mr Todd's first racehorse. Working in Dunedin, where he was born, Andy Todd was offered a horse to race by a friend, Charles Hudson. However, that mare stumbled and fell heavily while competing at Balclutha and didn't race again. Mr Hudson, when told of the accident, immediately offered Todd Lonzia, already the winner of a couple of races for him, as a replacement.
Andy Todd could hardly refuse. Todd Lonzia over a long career won from long marks and several times - notably at Ashburton and at Washdyke - took on and beat the pacers. Probably the best of his own pacers was Drucus (by Jack Potts), the winner of nine races in NZ when trained first by Ces Donald and later by Derek Jones. Drucus was then sold to Australia. There were a lot of others, and most of them won a race or two. He raced the odd galloper and, back in the early days, was active in greyhound circles as well.
After working for some years in the hardware and builders' supply trade, Andy Todd bought the Bowling Green Hotel in Dunedin in 1939. Later, he took over the Caledonian, also in Dunedin. In 1945 he moved north to Christchurch where he had McKendry's Hotel (now the Cantabrian) for some years. Another move, this time to a hotel in Rakaia, before shifting to the Prebbleton Hotel. In 1965 he gave away the liquor trade and moved into the morning and afternoon tea business. Andy's Tearooms, in the bustling heart of Christchurch boomed. It was Andy Todd's constant delight to hand out sweets for the children in the shop, help mothers with their prams, carry trays for the older customers. That personal touch was his trademark. He retired from the business about five years ago.
It was back in the days at McKendry's when he and a friend, Les Ashworth, started organising air trips to race meetings all over the country for "the flying sportsmen." People queued to join the band. The group would fly, often in two aeroplanes, to Auckland, Manawatu, Tauranga, to Wyndham...or wherever. The pair organised many train trips, too, to the races at Forbury Park.
At one stage, Andy Todd was on the committee at Forbury Park, was patron at Hororata and was a life member of the Canterbury O.T.B. Association and the Kaikoura Trotting Club.
The trotter Final Donn was the last horse he raced on his own, while he was a partner with his nephew Brian Taylor of Christchurch for some years after that in Rere Hine, another trotter.
Credit: Graham Ingram writing in NZ Trotting Calendar 24Aug82