| FEATURE RACE COMMENT |
YEAR: 2010
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Trevor Proctor and his partner Diane Dynes enjoyed their greatest moment in harness racing when Tact Lizzie romped away with the $80,000 PGG Wrightson NZ Breeders Stakes at Addington last Friday night.
Tact Lizzie didn't just get a suck along behind the pace, sneak up the passing lane and fall in to win by a nose - which you would almost expect when such a time-honoured Group 1 event was won by a $64 outsider. No. She started from the outside of the second row, looped the field with 1000 metres to go, and literally ran her opposition into the ground!
And the icing on the cake? Her winning time of 3 09.4, which represented a stunning mile rate of 1 57.2 for the 2600m mobile and even wiped a name like Mainland Banner from the record books in the process. Moments don't get much better than that. "This is our biggest thrill by a long shot," Proctor said afterwards, "I'm still shaking."
Friday's field probably wasn't the greatest Breeders Stakes line-up possible, with top mares like Kiwi Ingenuity, Lauraella and Special Ops all absent for one reason or another, but any thoughts of the event being 'easier' to win this year soon went out the window when Tact Lizzie drew saddlecloth 14. Even Proctor was almost conceding defeat as he found a spot in the stand. "Pretty much," he said. "From there (14) we'd have been pleased if she finished in the top half of the field, and thought that if she even ran a place it would have been more than what we could ask for."
Tact Lizzie had other ideas, and forever etched her name onto one of Addington's most sought-after trophies for the mares. Proctor admits that it took him a long time to work out a training regime that suits the now 10-win mare, and it is one that goes against the grain. "Hard work," he says. "You hate doing it, but it's just how she is - she loves it. And you can't give her much time off either, because she tends to tie up real bad."
Tact Lizzie is a 5-year-old daughter of Christian Cullen and the New York Motoring mare Tact Hayley. She was bred by Diane's father the late Derek Dynes, and belongs to his tough old Southland breed that has sent forth numerous good horses over the decades. After Derek's passing a couple of years ago, Tact Lizzie is now raced by Diane's mother Bessie.
Proctor has been involved in the sport ever since he moved from Invercargill to Winton in the early 1990's, and worked for Derek initially. "I'm a painter and decoratorby trade - training's just a part-time thing for me," he said. "We've only got the two racehorses; her and Tact Aunty, plus a couple of 3-year-old fillies who qualified recently."
Tact Aunty is the same age as Tact Lizzie, is also by Christian Cullen, and being out of Flash Tactics she belongs to the same family; he and Tact Lizzie have the same fifth dam, Tactics. Flash Tactics was more than capable on the track herself, winning eight times from Derek's stable and finishing in the money behind Flight South (third, NZ Premier Mares' Championship) and Kym's Girl (second, NZ Standardbred Breeders' Stakes) this time nine years ago.
The Premier Mares' Championship tomorrow (Thursday)at Addington is where Tact Lizzie could head next, although Proctor is going to leave making the decision about starting until after he gave her a jog on Sunday. "The 1950 metres probably won't suit her, she's more of a distance horse," he said. "She doesn't give you a great turn of foot, but she does cover the groud deceptively well. And she could be in foal, too. We got her served by McArdle before she came up to stay here at Laurence Hanrahan's, and the vet says she feels like it but he couldn't find the embryo on her scan."
Friday's stunning victory was also the pinnacle to date in the career of driver Stephen McNally.
Tact Lizzie's regular pilot Jonny Cox couldn't get a flight to Christchurch later than 2.00pm that afternoon, and was already committed to six drives at Winton where he thought he had one or two good chances, so Hanrahan went looking for a replacement.
"Laurence rung me last night, and I jumped at the chance," McNally said, adding that the only other time he had sat behind the mare was in last year's Hororata Cup when she missed away. "Driving in races like this is always more of a thrill than normally, because they're Group 1s and go down in the history books - and you're up against nice horses. I knew we were going fast out there, but it didn't quite feel like 3.09. It was a nice wedding present," he said.
McNally will marry his fiancée Rebecca Odering at a chapel in Prebbleton this Saturday, in front of some 200 guests. He and Rebecca have just built a house on the Motukarara property of his parents, opposite the racecourse, and with 10 in work he has got a nice number of horses around him plus he has kept busy doing farrier work as well. "Dad's working for me now."
Credit: John Robinson writing in HRWeekly 17Feb10
YEAR: 2007
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| Nick Off Holme (outer) beating Days Of Courage |
Just to rub salt into the wounds, Nick Off Holme was saddled with the outside of the second line for the $50,000 Firestone Free-For-All over a 1950 sprint journey on Cup Day, which was probably going to be short of her best should the race develop into not much more than the usual sprint for home. The situation did not seem to have changed much either as late in the piece as the field streaming past the 600m, where Nick Off Holme and regular pilot Stephen McNally had only Woodlea Life behind them and a seemigly impossible task before them. But racing is a funny game and this event had actually panned out just perfectly for such a dour stayer as Nick Off Holme, the 6-year-old Holmes Hanover mare.
The pace up front had been frenetic, and anyone who had engaged in it was starting to feel the pinch as they raced inside the furlong. Game 4-year-old Days Of Courage was proving the gamest of them all, but Nick Off Holme descended on him from the clouds and delivered the knockout blow right on the post. In scoring by a nose with a challenge that had been timed down to perfection by a thousandth, Nick Off Holmes posted an all-comers' national 1950m record of 2:19.8, a mile rate of 1:55.3 which will be of immense long-term value to her breeding career.
Changeover's 2:20.3 (MR 1:55.7) from last year's Sires' Stakes will remain as the 3-year-old record, and Rameses and Winforu can still lay claim to being the equal fastest older male pacers in 2:30.s, but Nick Off Holme is now the fastest of them all and obliterated the mares' record of 2:21.3 held by Flying Sands, set in a lower-class race on Show Day five years ago. "I thought they'd got away a wee bit on me, but I knew they'd gone hard and she would run home strongly," said McNally. "But I didn't think she could make up that much ground," he added. McNally also drove Rameses in his record on Show Day two years ago, but outside of Ella Powell's NZ Trotting Oaks last year, this was the biggest win of McNally's eight-year driving career.
Trainer Paul Kerr agreed that Nick Off Holme's Group 3 success was of some consolation and of benefit to her broodmare value, but still would have liked to have seen her in the Cup for principal Christchurch owner Rusty Smith, who races her with Oamaru's David Owens and Dunedin's Bob Shaw after securing her at the 2003 Australasian Classic Sale for $17,000. "Owners dont get too many chances to start in the Cup, and it would have been nice for Rusty to have been there," said Kerr. "And I think on what she has done in the past, she probably deserved to be there too. The races this season before today had just been going against her - she was having to do the work to make them," he added. Given that Nick Off Holme had won more races and stakes (10 wins and $125,317) than Cup starter Keeprightondreaming and could claim two fourths in her three preceding races compared with his one fourth, admittedly in the Kaikoura Cup, a pretty good case could have been made.
Nick Off Holme is now the winner of 11 races and $152,632, which also includes miles at Ashburton in 1:56 and 1:56.7 and a Cup Week double at Addington two seasons ago, and all things being equal she will get her Cup start next year before she begins her broodmare career. There had been no consideration given to the latter this year. "The plan this season was always to have a go at everything, particularly the big mares' races again. She will now be set for the Queen Of The Pacific in Auckland and then come back here in the New Year."
Nick Off Holme has been third in the last two NZ Standardbred Breeders' Stakes to It's Ella and Mainland Banner after being fourth and fifth in the Premier Mares' Championship the week before, while at last year's Cup Meeting she was second to Mainland Banner and pushed her to go a mares' record of 3:09.7 for the 2600m mobile. "She's been a bit unlucky to be born the same year as Mainland Banner and Foreal, but perhaps this will be her season.
Credit: Frank Marrion writing in HR Weekly 15Nov07