The Corner with Garry Chittick
No Corner last week; this week the Annual Thoroughbred Racing Awards night certainly deserves acknowledgment. It is the second of two nights of measurement of Thoroughbred achievements for the year, with the first focussing on our Breeders’ awards.
Savabeel was recognised for his lifetime influence, receiving the NZTR Award for Outstanding Global Achievement. We were of course very proud to accept this award on behalf of his shareholders and our clients. Twenty years is a big part of our working lives; at Waikato, his handlers and our family develop a relationship of mutual respect and trust. The understanding of your horse is beyond training; it is a great deal of instinct. Savabeel was a very integral part of the Waikato family; it may sound a little glib to those who don’t work with stallions, but I can assure my readers his loss pulls at our heartstrings.
His achievements are well documented; however, with his upcoming crops from current four-year-olds down, I am sure we haven’t heard the last of him yet.
159 stakes winners to date places him currently second of all-time NZ sires. He requires another eight to reach number one, does it matter – probably not, but I am sure he will go close. The remarkable result of the importation of Sir Tristram is that he, Zabeel and Savabeel, his son and grandson, are the only three sires to sire more than a hundred stakes in NZ to date.
With a number of Savabeels at stud, it will be interesting to see if the line can be maintained – there are more that have eventually disappeared than remained.
I often hear of the influence of a particular sire’s number of successful sire sons; if you take a little time one day, pick a number of the great sires then number their sire sons. You will be surprised; let me know how many have left sons more successful than their fathers, then you will realise the potency of Sir Tristram.
The highlight of the night for Mary and I was the acknowledgement of the Contribution of the Williams family of Te Pare.
There are so many stories I could tell of our relationship over the last nearly 60 years. But before I attempt to do them justice, let me dwell on what I can recall of their thoroughbred achievements. I may miss the odd mark however, I will do my best.
Legend has it that when Alistair married Nancy she would only move to Te Pare with a couple of mares in tow. I don’t know who was responsible for their stallion selection, but Sabean, Agricola, and Oncidium are a pretty good trifecta. Oncidium was a genuine super sire by Alcide, a descendant of Hyperion. He was the winner of the Coronation Cup, a mile and a half. I haven’t dug into the archives, but the names: Leilani, Tara’s Bulba, Gold Brick, Grand Cidium, etc., are just a sprinkling of his offspring.
Regretfully, he was lost to the industry at 14. There was, within a couple of years in the Central Districts, also the loss of Pakistan and Sobig; I think it was around 1975/6, with horses of that quality, Central Districts was the powerhouse of NZ breeding. I caught up with Tom at the time of Oncidium’s passing, and he said their aspiration was to replace the horse with the current Coronation Cup winner, Wollow. His enthusiasm was tempered with an asking price of one million pounds; it required three NZ dollars to buy a pound, need I say more, except to say regretfully who would be brave enough to stand a Coronation Cup winner now. (You need to read Robbie Waterhouse’s article on the subject of Classic races in The Straight (click here to read)).
Mary and I had 130 acres around the corner from Little Avondale. Buzz Williams still was at Te Parae, which meant the way home from town was past us; if the timing was right (gin time) he rarely got past our gate. In 1984 we met with the late Ollie Goodwin to hatch a plan to collectively purchase stallions. Buzz and Ollie were consigned to Canada and purchased the Queen’s Plate winner Sound Reason. He stood at Goodwin’s Riddlesworth Stud and was the start of a stallion sharing venture that has continued for 40 years.
Tom’s contribution to racing administration, the success of Sam’s Little Avondale, Dame Catriona’s outstanding courage and her CatWalk Trust are only a small part of why their recognition was special to we at Waikato.
I congratulate the other winners; Well Written deserves her title, and I wish the many connections all the best with their Australian campaign.
On the night I invited Mitch Lamb, NZ Racing General Manager, to visit, well, he was on the job and suffered three hours of Chittick indoctrination; when you have him secured in a bench seat four-by-four, the poor bugger had no way out. Did he learn anything, we will have to wait and see. Did I learn anything, yes of course, but the probable benefit is he, at least, has a good look at how those at the coal face are very dependent on NZTR making the right decisions. I have said many times, no one owes us a living; however, without the breeders there will be no them. We once had a bright Chairman who suggested there was an oversupply of horses as the last sale he had attended there were 20% passings – hence, to his thinking, the law of supply and demand: no shortage. Beyond that, he suggested there were plenty bred in Australia if we were short. This wasn’t a one-on-one conversation but a meeting of the minds; I can assure the group attending were stunned.
So, I think the more visits we have from the executive running NZTR, the more understanding there will be. Perhaps even the Chief Executive should spend some of his busy time away from the office. Who knows?
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