PLAY ON IMPRESSIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 17

PLAY ON IMPRESSIVE

STAR IN MAKINGS

SAME DESCENT AS LIMOND

No horse among the younger brigade of the open handicappers has made more impression this season'than the recent Levin and Otaki winner, Play On. In both his successes this horse has outclassed his opposition, and, though the fields he beat were not up to top grade, one was satisfied after his win at Otaki on Saturday that he might be one of the coming stars in the Dominion's racing firmament. Play On, now four years old, is a fine big muscular stamp of horse carrying all the marks of quality. He has a free, natural style of galloping, and in his racing this season he has shown himself an easy horse to handle, i settling down wherever his rider has desired and then completely overshadowing his opponents when allowed to go along at top pace. His two recent wins have been at \\ miles, and in each of them he has finished full of running. A YEAR'S RACING. It is 3ust over twelve months since Play On had his first race at the Takapuna Meeting at Ellerslie on November 27 of last year. He then contested the Melrose Maiden Handicap, and, sent out one of the outsiders of the big field, he made quite a fair showing. His next racing was at the Auckland Cup Meeting, where he finished just behind the places in the Queen's Plate and the Royal Stakes, and it thereupon became fairly patent that he was of more than average calibre. Brought down to the Wellington Meeting in January he was three times as well backed as anything else in the Trial Plate, the only race he had at the meeting, but he was slow off the mark and then, when moving up, ran out very wide, which settled his chances. Before this race he had been purchased by Mr. M. Millar, of Palmerston North, and Mr. Millar next sent him. to the Takapuna Meeting a week after Trentham, where he was a close third in the Wynyard Plate the first day and then won the Hauraki Plate, 1 mile, worth £300 to the winner, on the final day. That first success, at his sixth outing, moved Play On from hack ranks. His next start was in the Rangitikei Cup, in which he finished fifth of the six runners, and then he did not race again for four months. In his three final starts for the season he was second to Matoru in the Winter Stakes, 7 furlongs, at Marton, second to Win-! some Lv in the Riddiford Handicap, 7 j furlongs, at the Rangitikei Hunt Meeting, and unplaced when favourite, for the Open Handicap, 7 furlongs, at the Manawatu Hunt Meeting, the winner being Pukeko, who was conceding Play On was third at Bulls at his first start, and in two subfeauent appearances h« has won the Levhf Handicap and the Here Nekitini Handicap, both over 1J miles. At Svin he was weighted 7.9 and carried Kr rbfsJ^^sf he has been ridden by the stable apprentice, I. Howe. Briefly his record is as follows:— i Stakes. Starts. Wins. Places. £ At 3 years 10 \ \ 375 At 4 years » _^ __ 3 4 £"50 lubsSntial otter, for him from Mr. Tumiar the day prior to his costly race S the Wellington Meeting last JanuSv For Mr Millar, when account is taken of his high present value, he is now becoming a very profitable investment. INTERESTING LINES. Play On is a four-year-old brown son of the Son-in-Law horse Philamor and the Westward Ho—Kitty Muldoon mare Maid of the West. Maid of the West had half a dozen foals in the Dominion, but the only other one besides Play On to have raced is Western Maid, by Iliad, who had three starts as an early two-year-old m Mr. Williams's colours but then went amiss. Two of the others, Lady Glanely and Maid of the East, are now also at the StXlke name of Maid of the West's second foal, Lady Glanely, correctly suggests that Maid of the West was bred by Lord Glanely. The sub-branch of the family to which she belongs has had no success of note in England tor several generations, though Starshot, a half-brother by Sunstar to Maid of j the West, was a fair handicapper who j was afterwards sold to go to India., Further back, however, one is able to, observe the factors of potential worth J that are now being given tangible demonstration in Play On. Maid of the West's dam, Kitty Muldoon, was by Love Wisely from the 1895 mare Scotch Brose, by Ayrshire (son of Hampton) from Spray, by Springfield (son of« St. Albans) from Sunray, by King of the Forest (son of Scottish Chief). One has to go back to Sunray to discover the worth ot this branch of the Bruce Lowe No. 1 family. Sunray is one of the famous names in the history of the No. 1 family. Two of her daughters were Sunrise and Spring Moon, who were both full-sis-ters to Spray, the third dam of Maid of the West. A daughter of Sunrise was Lindal, who became dam of Limond and Pombal, and also of Sandal (sold to the Argentine at a high figure) and of Marcia Blanche, the dam of Marconigram (sire of the Melbourne Cup winner Marabou); and other daughters were Greeba, the dam of Eager (sire of Gloaming's dam), and Cheery, the grandam of Phalaris. Spring Moon had an even more profound influence on the thoroughbred in the Dominion than Sunrise,had, as one of her daughters was the Sheen mare Otterden, who became dam of unbeaten Boniform and of Martian, two of the best stallions ever to have graced the stud in New Zealand. Sunray and her descendants belong to the Problem branch of the No. 1 family, which has also been responsible for such horses as Swynford, Jeddah, Chaucer, Pilgrim's Progress, Gay Crusader, etc. It is interesting thus to observe that Play On hails from a very stout maternal line, though his immediate forbears have not done so much towards its reputation as some of his collateral relatives have done. It. is also of interest to note that Play On's sire and dam are both of the No. 1 family, but the inbreeding to the line is remote, as Philamor belongs to the famous Paraffin branch, which separated from the Problem branch at the Trumpator mare Pawn, eight or nine generations back. There is a closer piece of inbreeding in Play On through the mating of Philamor and Maid of the West, as Philamor's dam was by Amadis, a son of the Wisdom horse Love Wisely, and Maid of the West's dam, Kitty Muldoon, was also by Love Wisely.