By Mac Henry
B D Windermere and her half-brother Blow A Cloud were winners at Invercargill on Sunday and Andrew Armour was the successful driver of both.
Armour ended the day with three when Fleeting Grin, which he trains himself, was successful in the last.
Jack and Andrea Tither of Invercargill own the pair’s dam Sheza Windermere, by Christian Cullen. B D Windermere is her second foal, following V C Windermere, the winner of four. The Tithers race B D Windermere, Jack trains her, and Sunday’s win came in the final heat of the Southern Belle Speed Series. The $20,000 final of the series is run over a mile at Winton on 19 March.
Sheza Windermere’s third foal, Blow A Cloud, won the C0 claimers contest. He had been trained by Jack Tither until claimed out of a similar race in January, in which he ran second. Murray Brown has taken over the training but Armour has stayed in the sulky.
Three year old filly, RnR Windermere by Rocknroll Hanover is the next out of Sheza Windermere. She qualified in October.
* Others to grab multiple wins were Nathan Williamson and his mother and father in law, Robyn and Ross Jones, proprietors of Kina Craig Stud. Bernie Winkle and Statham were the two winners trained and driven by Williamson. They were bred by the Jones’ who also share in the ownership of both. For Robyn Jones it was the second time she’d had two wins in a day, following Statham and Poppymalda in January last year.
* Shane Walkinshaw bagged a driving double on Leander Lily and Perfectly Ideal. An Art Major filly, Leander Lily was bred and is raced by New Zealand Racing Board member Graham Cooney, currently of both Invercargill and Tauranga. Cooney went within a head of getting two when Devil May Care missed to Statham in the Summer Cup. Winton winner Perfectly Ideal made it a perfect two wins from two starts.
* On a day of fast times, five of the six 2200 metre mobile contests were cut out in better than 2:45. Fastest was the Allan McVicar owned and trained Will I Am, driven by junior Maruia Parker and successful in 2:40.7.
*** On Sunday, Clark Barron won his second race with Best Of The Bunch, two years and four trainers after the first, and in a different gait.
Bred by Russell Morton of Ryal Bush out his three-win mare Top Of The Pile, Best Of The Bunch was sold for $17,000 at the 2011 premier sale. Barron prepared him as a pacer for his first seven starts, from January to April 2014, for Parr Bloodstock Limited and Palmers Syndicate.
Jonny Cox and Amber Hoffman (4 starts) and Darryn Simpson (2 starts) were his next two trainers before a 10-start stint with Geoff and Jude Knight between February and May 2015. By then, Best Of The Bunch had been leased by P. and David Chalmers of Mosgiel, friends of Eric Parr of Parr Bloodstock. He won at Invercargill and Forbury Park, had his last start for the Knights late in May and by early July had won a qualifying trial as a trotter for Craig Buchan.
Best Of The Bunch hadn’t gone fast enough though. That came at his fourth trial in November. Three race starts in his new gait followed but the six year old broke in each if them. Re-enter Barron who made some changes to the action of Best Of The Bunch. “I plumbed him up,” he said. In addition, pacifiers went on, fixed deafeners were replaced with the removable type, and victory was achieved over 2700 metres by half a head in a maiden trotters time of 3:38.0.
Barron scored a second trainer-driver win when Dancing Dixie won at her fourth appearance as a three year old. Raced by Russell and Marilyn Baird, Dancing Dixie was a $54,000 purchase at the 2014 Christchurch sale.
“I’d picked her myself but got Clark to buy her, we were on our way home and I was talking to him on the phone,” Baird said.
Dancing Dixie started four times as a juvenile, winning at Winton and running second to Pat Campbell on the grass at Gore. She is by Bettor’s Delight from the Christian Cullen mare Lady Dancer, winner of seven and from the family of Surprise Package who numbered the Noel J Taylor Mile among his 14 wins for stakes of nearly three quarters of a million dollars.
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