He is the 11th foal from Janetta’s Pride and her sixth winner, while she also figures as the granddam of last year’s New Zealand Trotting Derby winner Doctor Mickey, who has now won over six figures.

Janetta’s Pride first left two unraced colts by Pernod Eden and Chiola Hanover, but 10 of 11 subsequent foals have been by Sundon.

Ima Gold Digger is the eighth of those siblings and as mentioned the sixth winner, while the other two are the fillies Vivian Leigh and Juliana, the latter placed in four of her five races before going amiss.

The first of those siblings was the colt Dependable, who won 14 races including the G2 Trotting Stakes at two and the G1 Rosso Antico and the G1 Trotting Stakes at three.

His year younger sister Jo Anne was a freak as a juvenile and won seven races at that age, including the G2 Trotting Stakes at Addington a few weeks after Dependable won his Trotting Stakes there.

She also trotted to a national mile record for a 2-year-old trotting colt or filly of 1.58.5, a mark which still stands eight years later.

That was the 2000/2001 season and the one where Janetta’s Pride should have got the Broodmare of the Year Award, but it was also about the time that the Broodmare Excellence Award was introduced as well and things got a bit muddled.

Aberfeldy was given the Excellence Award when she didn’t even have a winner that season.

She won the award because she had well deserved it previously and been unlucky.

Previously the emphasis for the award was performances during the season under review.

The season this changed was the one where Janetta’s Pride was the dam of both the 2yo and 3yo Trotter of the Year.

So Janetta’s Pride was very unlucky in 2001 and she was unlucky last year as well after Jo Anne’s first foal in Doctor Mickey won the Trotting Derby (previous Stakes), particularly considering Janetta’s Pride’s daughter Shirley Temple won the G1 Trotting Derby beating the colts the previous year.

Thus, Janetta’s Pride is now the dam of four Group race winners which include three winners of the G1 Trotting Derby, while being the grandam of another winner of the latter.

Ima Gold Digger also won the Sires Stakes and Northern Derby this year for good measure.

This is a quite outstanding record by Janetta’s Pride and the rising 21-year-old is far from finished yet either.

She had a Monarchy filly this season and while she missed to Sundon after 12 consecutive foals and is having a well-deserved rest at stud, her first six daughters are already active as broodmares.

Ima Gold Digger has been yet another top performer from the family for Allan Georgeson after some bad luck in the preceding years.

Georgeson, who has had first rights to each of Janetta’s Pride’s foals over the years, raced Dependable and Jo Anne and also Doctor Mickey, but not much had gone right in the interim.

Dependable and Jo Anne were both brilliant youngsters, but while they both won races beyond that point, neither never really fulfilled their enormous early potential either and ultimately the disappointments would become more frequent than the celebrations.

Georgeson and his son Lee actually went two seasons without training a winner, while then there was an illness which severely curtailed any sort of attempted comeback.

On the trotting front, outside of training So And So for a couple of wins and producing a promising juvenile in Outmuscle in recent years, not a lot had been going right until Doctor Mickey produced a minor upset in the Derby.

Doctor Mickey was a known talent, but even he seemed to be going perpetually off the rails even under the expert eye and guidance of Mark Purdon.

Not many saw Doctor Mickey coming in the Derby in March last year therefore and Georgeson was among them - that is until Purdon peeled off the back of the favourite Sovereignty inside the furlong.

Georgeson has obviously been in the racing game long enough to know all about the highs and the lows and the unexpected ironies, but all this with Doctor Mickey just had to 'take the cake'.

Georgeson could firstly reflect on an unexpected Group One success with Doctor Mickey that he had forsaken the previous year, and one which would have seemed equally unlikely.

He had had the option to take (the lease on) the foals from Janetta's Pride since Dependable and Jo Anne and had done so with the three subsequent and consecutive Sundon fillies.

Jo Anne had been a star and still holds three national records for juvenile trotting, but her sisters in Vivian Leigh, Juliana and Jasmyne had amounted to little between them for one reason or another.

Juliana certainly showed flashes of juvenile brilliance, particularly when she should have beaten One Over Kenny in the Cambridge Trotting Stakes, but only Jasmyne eventually won a race at Reefton, and that was after Georgeson had relinquished her lease.

Vivian Leigh had a lot of ability and speed as well, but not the temperament to be a racehorse.

So by the time Janetta's Pride had delivered another Sundon filly in the 2003/04 season, which was her ninth foal at the age of 15, by then Georgeson had had enough.

With a 'thanks but no thanks' reply to breeders Bevan and Keith Grice, Georgeson said "I am sick of Sundon fillies".

That foal would be called Shirley Temple and from Paul Nairn's stable, she would achieve the rare feat of a filly winning the Trotting Derby, when she downed two other Sundon fillies in Jazmin Alicia and Hazel Maud as the likes of King Charlie, Trotupastorm, Holiday Lover and Ronnie Coute disgraced themselves.

Then there was the great irony about how Doctor Mickey’s Derby success all came about in the first place.

About the same time in 2003 that Shirley Temple was knocked back and Jo Anne was quite obviously going nowhere except for the broodmare paddock, Georgeson had become upset by comments in the NZ Harness Racing Weekly attributed to Michael House about the effects of over racing juveniles and Jo Anne in particular.

The upshot of that 'behind the scenes' drama was that House wrote a Letter to the Editor of the NZHRW where he ended by offering Jo Anne a free service to his new trotting sire Dr Ronerail.

It was as much a marketing ploy as a gesture of goodwill.

Jo Anne resides with Georgeson at Rolleston and while he has the first option on each of her foals for life, the Grice's still own her and dictate the consorts.

Bevan Grice took up the House offer and would name the resulting colt Doctor Mickey.

"Some people like to call me Mickey Mouse among other things and Bevan called him that because I fixed the situation," recalled House.

"Allan just loves Jo Anne and he wasn't about to let a name stop him from taking her first foal.

"Bevan then sent the mare back to Dr Ronerail and paid for the service - which he does with any free service - and promised that if she had a filly, he was going to call that foal Sexy Michele (after House's wife)," he added.

Jo Anne's second foal by Dr Ronerail was a colt however and as Classic Material, he has posed his share of problems as well.

He was second on debut at Addington back in August last year behind his stablemate Ima Gold Digger, but he hasn't shown much form since.

Jo Anne then had a filly by Monarchy called Elizabeth Rex, while she has since left a yearling filly by Pegasus Spur which has been called Fly Bi, and a colt by Pegasus Spur named Indiana Jones.

"I thought we'd give Pegasus Spur a go as he was a very good 2-year-old (winning nine of 16 starts and $339,857) and his sire S J's Photo was unbeaten in 13 races at two, so he must have had a pretty good head on him," said Bevan Grice.

"However, I would have to say that with Muscles Yankee at over $20,000 and Dream Vacation gone, good class trotting sire options have been looking a bit thin on the ground lately," he added.

There was a time when the Grice's were known almost entirely for the Coo Doo and pacing side of the Mavis Wood family, but now it is the trotting branch which has come to the fore for them.

They had 12 mares in foal last season and nine are trotters emanating from Mavis Wood's daughter Agent as opposed to her Nelson Derby sister Lady Dimp.

Of the 20 pacing mares "down the back", just four were bred last season.

Janetta's Pride was bred to Sundon for a ninth consecutive season, and for the 12th time in the last 13 seasons, but after missing was bred to Monarchy and got in foal late in the piece.

That resulted in a weanling filly called Royal Contender.

Priceless Gem, her unraced Britewell daughter the season after Jo Anne, was given the year off after producing five Sundon foals, and is now in foal to Monarchy.

At last count, the Grice's had bred 39 foals by Sundon.

Vivian Leigh's first foal is a 2-year-old colt by Monarchy called Bob Hope, while she has since had two colts by Pegasus Spur and is back in foal to him.

Juliana's first foal is a 2-year-old filly by Monarchy called Jigsaw and she has since had a Continentalman filly called Carla Bruni, after the model who married the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and a Pegasus Spur filly named Sarah Palin.

Juliana also went back in foal to Pegasus Spur, while Jasmyne had a dead foal by Monarchy this season and has gone back to him.

Janetta's Pride is by Gee Whiz II and the first foal from Zola (Game Pride), and subsequent siblings to her were Milanian (2 NZ wins) and the qualified fillies Zomba and Zizette.

Zola's last foal and her first by Sundon was Kiwi Battler (8 NZ wins, US1.58.8).

The Grice's bred a few foals from Zomba and Zizette before leasing them to House in recent seasons.

The Grice's are now breeding from daughters of Zomba (placed) in Oceania (3 NZ wins) and Melting Moments, while Zizette's first three foals were colts and winners, including Buster Keaton (6 NZ wins) and Upper Crust (18 Aus wins, $65,587).

This has obviously become a quite extensive family, but it could so easily have not happened at all.

Zola was the only trotting bred daughter of Queenstown, whose two other filly foals went nowhere, while Queenstown (Armbro Del) was one of only three foals from the Court Martial mare Lady Earnscleugh and was her only filly.

The latter's fourth dam was Mavis Wood, who was bred by Bevan and Keith's famous uncle Ben and who at one time held the mile trotting record at Ashburton under saddle.

She was officially by the brilliantly-bred Rodgewood (Harold Dillon-Sal Tasker, by Rothschild), although the Grice's have been led to believe she was much more likely to have been by his associate sire Denver Huon.

Mavis Wood was bred from by Ben's nephew Len and produced 12 foals, including seven fillies, and eight winners, among them a fine trotter in Java.

Nine of her foals were by Ben's Auckland Cup winner Nelson Derby, the sire of his dual New Zealand Cup winning mare Haughty.

One of them was Laurene Wood, who led to the likes of top pacers in Trojan, Upper Class, Lawn Boy and Lombo Rapida, while Mavis Wood's last foal was Lady Dimp, the dam of Coo Doo and also Arrest.

Coo Doo left 18 consecutive foals between 1967-84 for 12 winners, among them Wellington Cup winner Palestine and good sorts in Stereo Light, Barbara Del, Doctor Findlay, Columnist, Kiss And Coo and Finest Hour, while a daughter in Anna Pavlova was the dam of Cup class pacer Derby and this line has led to any number of Group race performers.

Arrest was the dam of Cyclone Lad and she led to the likes of Karena and Alice In Wonderland, the dam of The Flyin Doctor (12 NZ wins, US1.49) and Womanizer (US1.51.4).

Coo Doo has gone down as probably the best broodmare never to be a Broodmare of the Year - the (overall) Excellence Award coming too late for a mare who never had one outstanding season but who fashioned an outstanding record over time.

Janetta's Pride was also more than a shade unlucky in 2001, when the Excellence Award was introduced and she was accorded neither that or Broodmare of the Year.

Now she is the dam of three Trotting Derby winners and is the grandam of a fourth, which is the first foal from her first filly.

So it is high time that one member of the Mavis Wood family is accorded some overdue recognition.

Frank MARRION