Samasaan completes great double with cup win at Trentham

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 27

Samasaan completes great double with cup win at Trentham

By

J. J. BOYLE

A long drought for the South Island ended on a showery day at Trentham on Saturday. Back in the 1950 s two wins on a major Trentham programme for the South Island would have been something of a hohum affair.

But that changed soon after the departure from the scene of stayers of the quality of Great Sensation and Eiffel Tower. Eiffel Tower won his Wellington Cup in 1965 but from then until Saturday the South Island remained scoreless.

Samasaan, Christ-church-owned, Riccartontrained, brilliantly stopped that gap from widening with a staying performance of quality under taxing conditions in Saturday’s $150,000 race. The chestnut, bought out of the Trentham sale ring for $4500 five years earlier, sustained a run from far down the field and won in style by close to two lengths. He went storming to the post as if he had an inexhaustible supply of oxygen. That coming in the same season as his New Zealand Cup victory gives him a place of eminence on the honours list of famous New Zealand

stayers, and will make him the glamour horse for one or more of the big Australian cup races selected for him later in the year. Samasaan becomes the first to win the New Zea-land-Wellington Cups double in one eason since Koiro Trelay in 1980-81.

Before that there was a longer gap, to Golden Souvenir, which in the 194546 season won the New Zealand and Wellington Cups and ran second between times in the Auckland Cup. Happy Ending captured the New Zealand-Welling-ton Cups double in 1942, the year the Wellington Cup was restored to the calendar as a two-miler. Back in 1927, Rapier, also from Riccarton, won the Wellington, New Zealand, and Auckland cups in one year; the Trentham race, then run at a mile and a half, as a five-year-old, and the New Zealand and Auckland Cups at six. Samasaan’s win on Saturday was a training triumph for Garth Jackson, who, at 32, and only five years after he took up training, is enjoying success denied many who have had lifetimes in the game. Jackson has a quarter share in Samasaan, partnering Michael Bell, a veterinary surgeon, and lan Harrison, a quantity surveyor.

“This sure beats riding

jumpers,” Jackson said with a grin after Samasaan’s triumph on Saturday. Jackson had enough flesh on a lanky frame to limit his career as a race rider largely to jumps racing, and he widened his experience in that sphere in England and on the Continent.

He gained more valuable experience as an employee of Sir Gordon Richards and Stan Mellor, in England, Theo Greiper in Germany, and Bart Cummings and Tommy Smith in Australia. Early last spring he turned down an offer of a managerial position in a prominent North Island stud, preferring to concentrate on training for a number of clients whose support he values highly. The exploits of Samasaan, with support mainly from In the Glen, in the meantime, have given Jackson good reason to believe he made the right decision.

Samasaan is another of the very fine stayers sired by the French-bred Zamazaan.

Mr Keith Burley, who imported Zamazaan for his Carlyle Stud near Auckland, also brought Samasaan’s dam, the Irish-bred Desert Love, to New Zealand. Desert Love, an unraced mare by Home Guard (son of Forli), had a distinguished half-brother in Apollo Nine, winner of 18 races in England and the United States.

Another big winner from this family was Enstone Spark, whose successes included the One Thousand Guineas. Samasaan’s successful partner in his two major cup triumphs has been Chris Johnson, whose decision to move from Woodville to Riccarton about three years ago was a reversal of the normal practice by successful

young race riders.

Johnson was associated with Canterbury Belle in her early triumphs, including the One Thousand Guineas, and thanks to the stars of the Jackson stable he is now having his most rewarding season yet

Curved Air was extending her career in the bridesmaid’s role when second to Samasaan on Saturday. It was her fifth such placing in her last six starts, and she achieved it with a characteristically solid finish. Whitole, one of the veterans of the field, handled the ground better than the others, but was in a gap of three lengths in third position.

Kotare Chief was pegged back to fourth after holding a wide lead around the home turn. His rider, Jim Collett, was left to rue the seven-year-old pulling tendencies. “My arms were starting to stretch, and I had to let him go at about half way, hoping he would settle more with a stronger pace,” Collett said. "A great run,” was Noel Harris’s assessment of the performance of Kiwi on a track not to the veteran’s liking.

Riders of Secured Deposit, Duanette’s Girl, Amloch, Gold Lomond, and Twelve Gauge also said their causes were hopeless after overnight rain and daytime showers deteriorated the track from easy to soft. The favourite, Fort Cheval, gave the race a sensational start. He was attempting to dive under the gate on his stall as the field was sent away, became unbalanced and scrambled for several strides, dropping away into a long gap behind the others. Although he was able to hook on to the tail of the pack he was left without a real chance and came in fourteenth.