Eddie Low, who trained and rode Star Order to win the 1979 New Zealand Cup, is back in the training ranks at Riccarton.
Low (79), who did not hold a licence last season, has Jimmy The One at Ashburton on Sunday. The 3yr-old is having his first start.
Low shares the ownership of the son of Kingmaker and Trinzea with Greg Caird, his son-in-law. Caird rode the Low trained Conan in 16 of his 17 wins.
Conan included the 1992 Parliamentary Handicap at Trentham; 1993 Cornwall Handicap at Ellerslie and 1992 Mason Stakes at New Plymouth among his wins.. The State Of Kings-La Tristesse gelding was ridden in his third win by Cheryle Walter, now Barnsley.
Low rode 703 winners including a horse by the name of Jimmy The One at Riverton in April 1949.
Low rode Reformed to finish third to Dalray and Welkin Sun in the 1952 Melbourne Cup. His brother, Charlie, rode Countenance in the same race.
Eddie won the Wellington Cup on Reformed earlier that year at odds of 52-to-one. Reformed was owned and trained at Wingatui by Joe Brown.
Low won the 1952 Ashburton Cup on the Brown-trained Royal Tower, who later won good handicap races at Wingatui and Riccarton.
Royal Tower came into the ownership of Brown after winning the James Hazlett Stakes (one mile) at Wingatui as a maiden 3yr-old for trainer Fred Shaw.
Low rode the Brown-trained Bobby Dazzler to win the Metropolitan Handicap at the 1949 New Zealand Cup meeting.
Bobby Dazzler was the outsider but one in 15-horse field at odds of 42-to-one.
Low had ridden a winner at the New Zealand Cup meeting the previous year when having his first ride at Riccarton. The horse was Beaugard, in the race for apprentice riders. Three races later Low won the feature sprint, the Stewards Handicap, on Full Play.
Low also won the Ashburton Cup on Star Order in September, 1979 when the Final Orders-Lady Tyrone gelding was trained by Frank Skelton. Low then took over the training of Star Order, whose trainer Snow Dawson had died in June that year.
The New Zealand Cup was a memorable first training win for Low.
Ashburton has been a happy hunting ground for Low. He won the featured John Grigg Stakes there as a jockey on Rio Negro (1953), Russleigh (1954), Seaend (1962) and Billy Joe (1967).
• Hypnotize heads the field for the Pakuranga Hunt Cup on Saturday with 72kg, 2kg more than he carried to win the race last year.
He will be having his first race over country since he won the Great Northern Steeplechase at Ellerslie last year with 70.5kg.
He also won the Pakuranga Hunt Cup in 2007 with 64kg and 2008 (63.5kg).
• Rosie Myers, the Awapuni apprentice, is back riding in New Zealand on Saturday after a stint in Melbourne. Her mounts at the Taranaki meeting include last-start winners Miss Marauder and Chickilicious.
• New Zealand thoroughbred racing will be televised in Singapore from the end of this month.
Under an agreement between the New Zealand Racing Board, Sky Racing and the Singapore Turf Club, several races will be telecast in Singapore every Saturday until the end of the year starting with the Makfi Challenge Stakes from Hastings on August 27.
Until now, only a handful of New Zealand races were telecast in Singapore on an ad hoc basis and NZRB chairman Michael Stiassny said the deal would deliver significant exposure for the New Zealand racing industry.
It was anticipated that the regular telecast would continue next year once schedules for 2012 had been finalised.
