SURPEEN HAS NO PEDIGREE, BUT ALL ELSE

Chronicle (Levin), 5 August 1947, Page 7

SURPEEN HAS NO PEDIGREE, BUT ALL ELSE

Two offspring of a nameless mare have now written their names into turl history, Valpeen and, on Saturday, Surpeen, which led the .field practically all the way to win the Grand National easily. In the race book Surpeen was briefly described as "Mr. G. OampbelPs br.g., llyrs., Surveyor — dain unknown"; aua while the ordinary citizen may have tu think twiee before he can remember his mother's maiden name, winners of the Grand National are supposed to be able to trace their descent back, on either side, foi"half-a-dozen generations at least, The Christchurch Star-Sun had tne following to say about -Surpeen 's history: — " Without apologising for the one-sidedness of his horse's family tree, Mr. G. Campbell, of Okoroire, who ovvns and trains it, told the story as he leu Surpeen back to its stall. "Years ago, he exchanged a hacK that had cost him £1 for a mare that he rode about his farm. It was a fairly good sort of a mare, and he mated her with a horse called Valkvrian, to get a hunter, never realising how good that hunter was going to be, for it was Valpeen, the only horse in the history of the New Zealand turf that has won the Grand National twice and the Great Xorthern Steeplechase twice. " But five years had passed between Valpeen 's birth and the first of his uotablc victories on the turf. During that time, the man who had ' swopped' Valpeen 's dam for a liaek worth £1 nad gone away to the 1914-18 war, and had been killcd,* and ilr. Campbell was ne\'er able to trace the mare's antecedents back beyond a sale at Tauranga, where she had been sold as oue of a drove of apparcntly ordinary farmer's or drover's hacks. Bore a Champion "When Valpeen proved a champion, Mr. Campbell asked his nameless mare to bear him anotlier such foal- and mated her to Surveyor, which, like the sire of Valpeen, was descended from a horse called William the Third. Shej was getting on in years tlien, but slie obliged with Surpeen, and later witn another foal, Southbrook, by a different t'ather, which has not yet raced, but which has done well in jumping events at shows. "A lopsided family tree was, -however, oue of the least of the handicaps under which Surpeen won the Grand National. Surpeen did not start li-fq with any ambitions to be the winner or £2390 for oue race; he is quite liappy just riding round the sheep, and that is his ordinary job in life. A race meeting is just an occasional day's outing for him. Broken-winded "Again, he is " broken-winded, " as horseiuen say. In otlier words, he contracted the equine equivalent of laryngitis in hunian beings, and the consequent inflammatioii so contracted the upper part of his windpipe that it c-an-not now supply his lungs with the amount of air they deniaud to keep him going at racing speed. So, in March oi last year, a veterinary surgeon cut a hole in his throat and inserted an aluminium tube, about an inch in dianieter. In nine starts since then, he has

never been further- back tirau third. "When he raced oiv -Saturday, most of the air that his great' lungs needed came in- through that ' tube, filtered • through a fine nietal gauze. Back in his stall, he stood, breathing deeply but . quietly. Mr. Campbell removed the gauze filter and replaced it with a plug ■ of cotton wool, and the horse's nostrils cxpanded as it reverted to the norma] manner of breathing."