A 100 years of history - The WA Pacing Cup

The rich history of Australia's oldest continuously run harness race will continue at Gloucester Park on Friday night with the 100th running of the harness racing WA Pacing Cup.

Following is a complete list of the WA Pacing Cup winning horses, trainers and drivers along with a list of all runners in last year’s Cup.

arriers will be drawn at a special function at Gloucester Park tomorrow (Tuesday December) and emergencies for the race will be announced tomorrow morning.

Field for 2013 Centenary WA Pacing Cup (Age Sex Breeding)

oth Im Themightyquinn (2011 and 2012) and Mysta Magical Mach (2009) have previously won the WA Pacing Cup and both horses have also been runner-up in the race – Im Themightyquinn (2010) and Mysta Magical Mach (2011).

Training Records

Gary Hall Snr (6)

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS - 100 YEARS OF THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PACING CUP

On January 11th 2013 the 100th running of the WA Pacing Cup will take place and another chapter in the rich history of this iconic event will be written.

It is a race that has reflected the history of this State and it has a unique place as the oldest continuously run harness race in Australia. While Western Australia’s Easter Cup began a year earlier in 1912 a BOTA strike in 1945 saw the Easter Cup not held that year.

The WA Cup has survived two World Wars, a slight change of name and venue, the Great Depression and Black Monday stock market crash of 1987 and seen the emergence of great champions both equine and human.

First run on 27th December 1913 as the WA Trotting Cup the result lay hidden for 70 years until research by the author found the missing result which was finally published for the first time in the 1984 Australian Trotting Year Book.

Up until that time the South Australian bred stallion Maori Speed, which won in 1914 for trainer/driver Frank Dennis, was credited as the first winner of the race by both the WA Trotting Association and Australian Harness Racing Council.

The Cup won by Maori Speed was returned to the WATA many years later by Frank Dennis’s son Max and this prized trophy is on loan to the WA Cricket Association and is displayed in the WACA’s cricket museum in the absence of such a facility at Gloucester Park.

The WA Cups run prior to the opening of Gloucester Park in 1929 were run at the track circling the WACA cricket ground.

When the 8/1 chance Letty Lind won the 100 sovereign event in December 1913 the race was known as the WA Trotting Cup and, despite the fact that it has never been won by a trotter, it carried the Trotting Cup tag until the 1972/73 season when a revamp of the Christmas Carnival saw the race become known as the WA Pacing Cup.

Letty Lind was bred at York in 1908 by H Wills & Co after they had imported the mare Jenny Lind to Western Australia in foal to the New Zealand bred stallion Principal. Principal was a son of the now legendary foundation mare Pride Of Lincoln.

Trained and driven by Charlie Fraser for her lessee owner A A Abbott, Letty Lind won by ten lengths from another mare in Heather Bells with the 6/4 favourite Annie Laurie a further half-length away in third place.

Born in Gippsland in 1882, Fraser had come to Western Australia in 1903. His father had been a leading horse-breaker in Victoria and young Charlie had followed in his father’s footsteps by breaking-in his first horse at the tender age of 12 years.

In April 1924 Fraser was given a 12 month disqualification for inconsistent running of the mare Saucy Girl and after his appeal was rejected by the WATA Committee he let forth at the Committee and promptly had his disqualification increased with a further 12 month cumulative disqualification for insulting and abusive language.

Fraser became the first trainer/driver to take the Association to the Supreme Court seeking an injunction and damages and after losing in the Supreme Court he then unsuccessfully took the case to the High Court of Australia in 1925. Fraser resumed as a trainer and driver in 1928.

That the fledgling WA Trotting Association was able to run a 100 sovereign race at all in 1913 was remarkable in that the body was barely three years old having been formed in September 1910 by a group of local trotting enthusiasts.

They wanted more competition than the annual Perth Royal Show and the spasmodic racing opportunities across the metropolitan area and occasionally at places such as York and Northam.

After the success of the first WA Cup the WATA began planning for the next year and in May 1914 they announced a four day Christmas carnival carrying total stakes of 2000 sovereigns including a 500 sovereign WA Trotting Cup.

A stake of 500 sovereigns put the WA Cup among the richest in Australia and the worst fears of those is favour of restricting the race to WA bred horses were realised.

An unheralded South Australian 5yo stallion called Maori Speed and his trainer/driver Frank Dennis arrived in Perth a little under three weeks before the 1914 WA Cup.

They had little trouble in accounting for the local duo of Pride and Rosalind before a crowd variously estimated at between 5000 and 7000 who purchased some 15,000 tote tickets at five shillings apiece and pushed the on-course tote turnover to more than 8450 pounds.

It was the first WA Cup run under lights and there was a sensation early in the evening when the owner of the early favourite Steel Bell scratched the gelding after a number of punters “got in” before the owner.

Maori Speed is shown as being foaled in 1910 which would have made him a 4yo when he won the Cup in December 1914.

However, all the published lists of handicaps for the 1914 Cup showed him as a 5yo and he began his racing career in the Port Pirie area of South Australia in March 1913 and it has been confirmed that he began racing as a 3yo against older more seasoned horses.

The success of the 1914 Cup carnival saw the WATA again increase the stake and in 1915 the race was advertised with a stake of 750 sovereigns for the winner.

After the success of Maori Speed in 1914, and his subsequent failure in the major races in Victoria and New South Wales, it was hardly surprising that the champion Victorian Spot would head west for the Cup.

Spot had won a dozen feature races in Victoria and New South Wales in the preceding four years including the 1915 Richmond Thousand. In November 1914 Spot had set a new Australasian Record for two miles at Addington.

Less than three weeks after his arrival in Fremantle by ship Spot won his heat of the WA Cup at a State Record rate of 2:18.25 over the 12 furlongs after overcoming a handicap of 130 yards.

Little wonder that he became the first odds on favourite to start in a WA Cup when he was sent out at 1/2f – he galloped and found the 130 yards too big a handicap to overcome and finished fourth behind a trifecta of mares in Pride, Grace Wood and Huonette.

Mares had a huge impact in the first decade of the WA Cup as owners, with an eye to the future of the local breeding industry, imported a large number of mares to the State.

The first ten WA Cup saw mares win five times, finish runner-up on six occasions and also record eight third placings – a remarkable 19 of a possible 30 first three finishes. In the first 30 years of the WA Cup mares recorded 13 wins, 13 seconds and 15 thirds.

In the 60 WA Cups run since 1952 the only mares to have won the race are Portree (1957), Color Glo (1966), Daintys Daughter (1970) and Pyramus (1972) and in the same period only eleven mares have been placed in the Cup. There are no mares in the field for the 2013 WA Pacing Cup.

The 1971 Cup won by Radiant Oro saw three mares in the 11 horse field with Daintys Daughter (2nd), Network (3rd) and Pyramus (8th) flying the female flag.

Only the 1918 New Zealand bred mare Kola Girl has been able to win the WA Cup and to then produce a WA Cup winner when sent to stud.

Her 1929 colt Kolect won the 1937 WA Cup after having finished second, third and fourth at three previous attempts.

He carried on the tradition when, during a break from racing, he sired Kolrock which won the 1940 Cup. The 1949 winner Bintravis is the only other WA Cup winner to sire the winner of the race and his son Radiant Oro won the 1969 and 1971 editions.

Red Travis, a full-brother to Bintravis, sired the 1961 Cup winner Beau Travis.

Leyoro won the Cup in 1962 for owner/trainer/driver Ron Porter and he later sired the dam of the Porter family’s 1980 winner San Simeon. The 1945 Cup winner Corsair also figured as the sire of the dam of the 1972 winner Pyramus

by Alan PARKER