Racing: Morgan turns back the clock

Jim Morgan, of Omakau, Dawn Dowling, of Te Anau, and Dorothy Morgan, of Omakau.
Jim Morgan, of Omakau, Dawn Dowling, of Te Anau, and Dorothy Morgan, of Omakau.
Jim Morgan, the Omakau owner-trainer, won with Ripalong at Gore yesterday 49 years after his first win there.

Morgan (83) bred Ripalong, the fifth winner left by Premium Gold, who won two races.

Premium Gold is a half-sister by Cadillac to Long Fella, who won 11 races in New Zealand in the early 1990s, the first five in Morgan's ownership.

Long Fella won a race at Gore in 1992 and the Son Of Afella gelding was claimed at Forbury Park four races later and joined the Graeme Anderson stable.

Morgan has been breeding from the family since he purchased the mare Brigold in the early 1960s.

Brigold, who did not race, was a half-sister by leading sire Light Brigade to champion race mare Arania.

Morgan won his first race as an owner-trainer with the trotter Rebel, whom he drove on the grass track at Gore in December 1961.

He had won a race as an owner at Tapanui in 1957 with Van Winkle, trained by Dave Todd.

Morgan made his mark in the mid-1970s with Tetarney, who won eight races before being sold to the United States where he took a record of 1.55.6.

• Themightyquinn, winner of the $400,000 Auckland Trotting Cup on Friday night, was considered too small to offer at the premier yearling sale.

The son of Washington VC and Love Sign, bred by David Kennedy, of Bayswater, was withdrawn from the sale and passed on to Dave Anderson to break in as a yearling at Prebbleton.

Peter Bagrie, the Ohoka horseman, had noted Themightyquinn in the sales catalogue and made further inquiries with Richard Aubrey, who was in charge of the colt.

"I went and had a look at him and liked him and a deal was done," recalled Bagrie.

"I did not have a problem with him being small."

Themightyquinn won six races for Bagrie, who sold him to clients of the Western Australian stable of Gary Hall, as a late 3yr-old.

Bagrie liked Themightyquinn as he had trained a close relative, Mighty Khan, to win the 1999 Yearling Sales Pace for horses bred to northern hemisphere time.

Mighty Khan was a half-brother to Happy Asset, winner of the 1999 Auckland Cup.

Kennedy bought Love Sign (Soky's Atom-Precious) in 2002 from Howick Jewellery Ltd.

She has just foaled a colt by Washington VC and she is the dam of a yearling filly by the same sire.

Bagrie won the main race at Reefton yesterday with Code Red.

 

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