b4breeding

Great to see a convincing win from Wick tonight. The Panspacificflight x On The Double 3yo gelding looked like the penny is really dropping. And a bold drive by John Dunn to take the initiative. Congrats to the owner and breeder I.L. Bennett.

I often talk about horse pedigrees and breeding. But for me Wick is the meeting point of two lines of genealogy – one that involves horses, particularly Panspacificflight (a sire I have flagged up many times previously) but also my own pedigree.

Wick is the place where my Scottish ancestors came from.

Wick, Scotland – on a fine day

Wick is in the north of Scotland, and where my own maternal line lived before their journey to New Zealand.

Tracing my own breeding back, I visited Wick on a trip from New Zealand almost 20 years ago, and I remember it vividly. Icy cold wind, the smell of salty sea and the scorch of a strong whiskey going down my gullet.

It was a part of the journey me and my partner at the time took to a visit our roots. She was following her Nordic/Viking tracks across Scandanavia to north Scotland and Ireland, and I was following my roots to Scotland. We ended up in the Orkney Isles,  following ancestrial connections, stone circles and puffins. Very, very cold but pretty cool.

I could understand why my ancestors left Wick. They had been pushed into to herring fishing ports like this by the complex history of Scotland and England conflicts and land grabs, a deed later repeated when both English and Scottish migrants arrived in New Zealand, a British colony, and did much the same to the indigenous Maori people.

Visiting Wick’s older town, and particularly Pultneytown, was my main interest – tightly close brick buildings crammed into narrow winding up-and-down streets, and of course the Old Pultney whisky distillery – yes, single malt whiskey was another love of mine that dissected nicely with family connections.

But the distillery was closed on the cold weekend day we came into Wick, as was much of the town. We had fish and chips (imported fish from Norway) from the chippy down at the wharf which was called Bremners Fish Shop (my family name), and we sat in the rental  car with the heater on, eating the chips and drinking the whiskey we had bought elsewhere, just trying to keep warm.

All of that comes back in a rush when I saw Wick cross the line tonight for a really good win, a lovely drive.

Yes, I had a wee bet on it, but being from Scottish heritage not a big one lol

Also was cheering for Panspacificflight and those who have had faith in him as a sire. Really adding value, great breeding.