Chris Grace in the footsteps of his great-grandfather G.G. Stead

Chris and Susanna Grace with the 1884 Wellington Cup. Graphic is a Grace-bred horse to have won the Wellington Cup but dual Flemington Group One winner Shillelagh is the best horse they have bred

by Brian de Lore
Published 17 July 2020

When you’re a descendant of one of the most successful owner-breeders this country has ever known, pressure may exist to uphold the family tradition, but the truth is Christopher Grace QSM isn’t a man who was ever looking back, and for most of his youth he was blissfully unaware of the racing and breeding successes achieved by his great-grandfather, G.G.Stead.

Chris was undoubtedly influenced by his father, though. George Grace showed he had racing in the blood but was also a dedicated farmer and family man and much more measured about horse ownership. He introduced Chris to racing on a rationed basis with a limit of one horse only on the farm for a then enthusiastic teenager.

In 1957 George took the then 16-year-old Chris with him to attend the Alton Lodge dispersal sale and funded the young Grace into the purchase of the then seven-year-old mare Tenderfoot for 350 guineas. It was a purchase that would set Chris off on a thoroughbred career path to countless breeding and racing successes.

Since that Alton Lodge Dispersal, Chris Grace has quietly built a thoroughbred empire with consistent success as a breeder, and has raced over 200 winners as an owner. The green, gold and white colours of Chris and Susanna Grace in more recent times were carried to victory in two group ones by their outstanding mare Shillelagh at Flemington, and last year in New Zealand by Hinerangi in the listed James Bull Rangitikei Gold Cup – a win that meant much more to the Graces’ sentimentally than it did for the stake or black type.

But Chris had a tough start to ownership – one that would have demoralised most enthusiastic young breeders trying to make their way with one broodmare. In consecutive years Tenderfoot was bred to Chatsworth II, and those matings produced fillies that he was required to sell to comply with his father’s one horse limit.

The first one sold was the 1961 weanling, in the birdcage at Awapuni, bought for 50 guineas by an astute judge and breeder Lorraine Jamieson

In those days, an auction of horses would often take place in the birdcage after the last race on selected race days. The first one sold was the 1961 weanling, in the birdcage at Awapuni, bought for 50 guineas by an astute judge and breeder Lorraine Jamieson.  And no purchase could have been more astute as that filly would be subsequently named Chantal and would sweep all before her both on the racecourse and at stud.

Chantal won nine races, including three group ones – the George Adams Handicap at Trentham at three, before Sydney where at four years she took the 1965 Epsom Handicap by five lengths from subsequent Melbourne Cup winner Galilee, and the George Main Stakes. At stud, she was sensational, producing seven winners of which four were stakes winners and two stakes-placed.

The year older yearling Chatsworth II filly was also sold in a birdcage following another race meeting and fared better at 150 guineas. Named Like Fun at home and Our Fun in Australia, she won seven races including the VRC Edward Manifold Stakes and was second in a Doncaster handicap and both the AJC and VRC Oaks, and later produced two top performers in Go Fun and Such Fun.

Our Fun and Chantal were the last two named foals out of Tenderfoot who died at a relatively young age before she could produce a foal from her final mating to Le Filou.

With the two Chatsworth II fillies sold, the now 21-year-old Chris attended the following Trentham Yearling Sale (1963) where he would make his first big purchase, after scraping together every pound he could muster, running three little businesses and moonlighting whenever possible. It was the O.E. savings for a trip that would never happen.

Hakawai won seven of her 12 races

For 230 guineas, he purchased a Le Filou filly out of the ARC Railway Handicap winner Foxbridge mare Te Awa (11 wins). Named Hakawai after a farm owned by his grandfather, she was trained by former top jockey Billy Aitken and proved top-class at two years, winning the inaugural Wakefield Challenge Stakes over seven furlongs at Trentham, and the Eulogy Stakes. She won seven of her 12 races but bad luck struck soon after her retirement when she died aged only four years.

Being by Le Filou who was known for siring stayers, Chris later lamented his decision to race Hakawai as a two-year-old, but conceded that when you’re only 21, and you’ve virtually been sleeping with the horse, there was no thought of being patient.

In those days training fees were around £10 a week which was twice Chris’s weekly pay. But the blow of losing Hakawai was at least softened by the insurers – Lloyd’s of London who paid out £10,000 which financed Chris into his first farm. It would take him another ten years to get the money together to make a serious broodmare purchase.

In the ensuing ten years, Chris and Susanna would owner-train 14 winners and have many more seconds – getting the horses fit with hill work on the ups and downs of their Hunterville farm.

South Australian trainer Colin Hayes purchased a four-times winning mare named Clearaway, which was a three-quarter sister-in-blood to Hakawai

Around the time of buying the farm, at one of those birdcage auctions at Fielding South Australian trainer Colin Hayes purchased a four-times winning mare named Clearaway, which was a three-quarter sister-in-blood to Hakawai, and Chris had never forgotten it. He had put his capital into the farm but now, ten years hence, he decided he would contact Colin Hayes to see if he could buy back into the family.

It had been an inspired purchase by Hayes for Clearaway founded her own South Australian dynasty by producing three stakes winners including the SA Derby winner Clear Prince, So Clear, Well Clear and the stakes-placed Clear Queen amongst her seven winners.

Following a trip to Lindsay Park Stud, Chris purchased Clearaway’s three times winning daughter Clearness which had contributed to Without Fear’s record-breaking first crop two-year-old season. And a year later he went back to Colin Hayes and bought Clear Queen by Ruantallan, so confident he was about the family.

He paid $100,000 for Clearness, returned her to New Zealand and bred from her the winning Zamazaan mare Hinewai which in turn produced the eight times winning Telegraph Handicap and Matamata Breeders’ Stakes winning mare, Morar (Otehi Bay).

More than forty years on and six generations after Clearaway, the Grace broodmare band is still dominated by the No.13 family that produced Hakawai, and success has been rewarded with the arrival of each and every generation.

The ecstatic young jockey that day was non-other than an apprentice experiencing the winning highlight of his career – Dave O’Sullivan.

As a point of interest, Hakawai’s dam Te Awa won her Railway Handicap at Ellerslie on Boxing 1953 witnessed by HM The Queen. The ecstatic young jockey that day was non-other than an apprentice experiencing the winning highlight of his career – Dave O’Sullivan.  

Hinerangi’s win in last year’s listed James Bull Rangitikei Gold Cup was significant for Chris and Susanna Grace for many reasons including Chris having been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal in 2014 for his services to the Hunterville community. Also, the race was named in honour of the late James Bull who Chris farmed alongside and who he was closely associated with during Chris’s long tenure as a committeeman of the Marton Jockey Club.

In 2001 Chris decided he needed to diversify and add new blood into the broodmare band. He commissioned Roger James to look at the Sydney Easter Yearling Sales at which he bought the Flying Spur filly later named Trocair.  On the track, she didn’t progress beyond winning a maiden, but when bred to Savabeel, she produced Tullamore which won five races including the 2011 Brisbane Cup for Gai Waterhouse.

The fifth foal of Trocair was Shillelagh, and while fate again played its part, this time, luck was in favour of the Graces. Chris had planned to sell Shillelagh as a yearling, but she came up with a haematoma at Christmas time about a month before the sales and was withdrawn.

Shillelagh currently resides in Australia and is in-foal to I Am Invincible to which she will return this coming season.

So, while George Grace may have denied his son the chance to keep Chantal all those years ago, that decision ultimately led to the purchase of Hakawai and later the pursuit of her family which has produced a numerous flow of top-class winners over so many years.

George Grace won two Grand National Steeplechases in 1939 and 1940 with a horse gifted to him named Clarion Call

Chris says his father couldn’t afford to have many horses although his did race and win two Grand National Steeplechases in 1939 and 1940 with a horse gifted to him named Clarion Call. He had 672 acres, a wife and four children, all of which he sent to private schools, and he determined that one horse at a time was enough. His mother also raced a jumper named Hi There and with him she won a Wellington Steeplechase and a Pakuranga Hunt Cup.

George Grace and Bob Stead of Sasanof Stud fame were first cousins and good friends, and Chris recalls the story of when Bob’s good Star Kingdom filly Starlit raced against Hakawai in the 1963 Champagne Stakes at Ellerslie, with Starlit winning. The two cousins and Auckland Racing Club President Alexander McGregor-Grant sat around a table with some open bottles and never saw another race.

Chris’s grandfather was a very active owner. He passed away when Chris was only three-years-old but in his time William Russell Grace had raced many good horses including the Great Northern Guineas winner Smoke Screen, the top two-year-old of her year, Mother Superior, Avondale Guineas winner View Halloo and the Wanganui Guineas winner and granddaughter of Eulogy, Russian Ballet, a filly by Nightmarch bred in 1935.

W.R. Grace was also a prominent committeeman at the Wanganui Jockey Club and was its president at the time of his death. He had farmed the property named Hakawai at Pahiatua before buying a 650-acre farm on the Borough at Wanganui.

Great-grandfather George Gatonby Stead won the New Zealand Derby 13 times

Great-grandfather George Gatonby Stead won the New Zealand Derby 13 times and the New Zealand Oaks nine times. He won the Auckland Cup three times, The NZ St Leger four times, the CJC Champagne Stakes 16 times, the ARC Royal Stakes 10 times, the Wellington Cup four times and the Great Northern Foal Stakes 10 times.

He also made many successful raids to Australia and was well known for relieving the bookmakers of their wealth. He won the inaugural NZ owners premiership in 1892-93 and repeated that feat 11 times in the ensuing 12 years.

Good thoroughbred families keep coming up with class racehorses. Christopher Grace has spent many years studying them, and has cashed in on the Bruce Lowe designation of No.13 which keeps coming up on his roulette wheel despite the number’s superstitious undertones.

He may not have looked back too seriously on his own pedigree, but it’s difficult to believe it hasn’t played a prominent role in the success story outlined above.

The End

Fake racing news only paints the glossy picture 

by Brian de Lore
Published 17 July 2020

Truth is stranger than fiction as the saying goes but the problem with racing today is that no one is telling the truth, and therefore the racing public cannot make the comparison.

We know the fiction dished up to racing people is strange but it’s becoming even more curious, and the fiction was again on show this week when some non-des-plume writer posing as ‘Newsdesk.’ wrote a story entitled, ‘Outgoing McKenzie hails Racing Industry Act.’

Subsequent inquiries to NZTR has revealed the author of this advertorial journalism is Andrew Birch.

It’s a hard headline to swallow given that Dean McKenzie and RITA was diametrically opposed to most of the changes made to the legislation between the first and second reading (and there were a lot of changes), but he is now displaying his versatility by adapting to it like a chameleon and is happy to accept the credit for all the gains made in legislation, given he is the boss of racing’s reform.

New Zealand racing administration has seen plenty of chameleons

The ability of the chameleon to change colour and adapt immediately to the environment in which it resides has long mystified the scientific world; in New Zealand racing administration, however, we have seen plenty of chameleons come and go.

The opening salvor in this article fails to convince in saying, “McKenzie believes his time at the helm of NZ racing is ending on a high with the passing of the Racing Industry Act.”

Let’ s get this straight! The Racing Bill reads only the way it reads because of a focused Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee who met most of the wishes contained in the well over 900 diligently written submissions including almost 100 who fronted personally for the oral hearings. They are responsible for this legislation – not the lines of arguments put forward by RITA, which performed poorly at the hearings (McKenzie) and was against many of the issues the industry wanted, such as retention of the IP (Intellectual property).

Further on in this story, McKenzie continues to use the pandemic excuse by saying, “COVID-19 was the ultimate curveball,” but Treasury throws cold water on that excuse in a paper that appeared on it’ s website that can be found at:

file:///C:/Users/User/OneDrive/Documents/NZRB-RITA/TreasuryRacingb20-initiatives-ia-4278244.pdf

On Page 4, Clause 5 says: “note, that due diligence on the RITA has confirmed that there were significant commercial and ownership issues that existed prior to COVID-19, and that the long-term commercial viability of RITA may be in question unless significant reforms are made.”

Treasury had PWC looking at the RITA books in March and Clause 5 confirms everything The Optimist has been saying about RITA’ s financial state over the past year.

Clause 6 confirms what Minister Peters alluded to in his pre-budget announcement: “note, that RITA is likely to require further additional support in the future to position the industry for recovery.”

It’ s not that difficult to conclude if you’re the recipient of $50 million from the Budget 2020 but still require further funding with a big question-mark on the long-term commercial viability, according to Treasury’s advice from PWC, then you’re skint.

…budget figures disclosed did not add up to delivering the funding for the codes for 2020 ($139.6 million)…

RITA still hasn’ t posted the full half-year report on their website, only an abbreviated version in News. It was put up briefly but taken down quickly and has not reappeared. The reason possibly because the budget figures disclosed did not add up to delivering the funding for the codes for 2020 ($139.6 million) committed to by Dean McKenzie and RITA. You can only cover up for so long – the truth will have to come out but no one is telling it at the moment.

McKenzie talks about how well he’s done with the legislation but fails to mention RITAs debt level to the ASB which is still reputed to be at $45 or $47 million.

Remember, it’s election year, and our Minister will not want any bad news for racing until at least September 20^th. To catch the votes, lousy news must be toned down to a minimum, and that’s why we are supposedly racing for the same stakes – the $139.6 million – although there’s nowhere near that amount of money available coming in on current revenue levels.

The get-out clause of a quarterly review on stakes money is sure to be used. And that’s why this good news story about McKenzie, who like Allen before him, is only fake news, strangely posted on the NZTR website.

Why would such a story appear on the website of NZTR promoting someone who has caused them the most grief in the past 18 months? NZTR supposedly represents the participants of the industry, and in fact, is in place to serve the industry in the best manner possible.

Where is the leadership? Racing people in New Zealand at the very least deserve some honesty, but no one from any organisation is currently providing it.

The End