b4breeding

I don’t want to go over Romola Hanover’s colt foals legacy in any detail at all. It is available elsewhere including Frank Marrion’s 2008 Harnesslink article when Art Major was first available here as a sire, which sums it up well. It is remarkable!

Another photo of her racing here, in her Harness Museum Hall of Fame entry (it needs to be updated to include what a remarkable number of sires she has left!)

Here’s an extract from the book “Quest for Excellence: Hanover Shoe Farm’s First 75 years”:

After all, it had once been John Simpson’s task to break and train most of the fillies that eventually found their way into the Hanover broodmare band. Although he may not have been at Hanover when Miss Bertha Dillon was the most revered broodmare in the world, he understood what broodmares meant to a farm. Some extraordinary producers were graduates of the Simpson stable. One exemplary alumna was Romola Hanover the nonpareil racing mare who was the hottest mama in the sport in the 1960s. Her first son Romeo Hanover won the Golden Crown for pacers in 1966 and his kid brother Romulus Hanover was voted the pacing sophomore king the following year. A few years later, Romola’s daughter Romalie Hanover was the most admired fillies in the sport. This trio had been sired by Dancer Hanover, but Romola Hanover also had exceptional performers by Lehigh Hanover, Torpid and even later Albatross.

She deserves a book of her own! When you look at her descendants and can mention top pacers of modern times and often who have also gone on to be very good sires like Real Artist, Art Major, Panspacificflight, Perfect Art, and potentially Captain Treacherous…it is quite incredible. Of course her own sons had a big role to play as sires in New Zealand, Nevele Bigshot and his Lehigh half-brother Nevele Romeo were imported here for stud duties in the mid 1970s, and were the foundation stallions for Nevele R Stud (started by Wayne Francis and Bob McArdle in 1973) – and Nevele Romeo lent his name to what is still one of New Zealand’s top studs. Neither left much of a legacy in terms of their enduring performance as sires, however. But Romeo Hanover, her very well performed son, stood in America and then for 11 years in Australia (for good “down under” results of 498 foals, 250 starters and 196 winners.) Romeo Hanover had an influence here in New Zealand as well through the likes of Live Or Die’s pedigree, and his son Speedy Romeo was also a sire here, but I suggest it is more through his daughters he has added value, and I’m interested in comments on how much you feel Romeo Hanover has contributed as a sire in the longer term.

Romola Hanover with John Simpson snr at Du Quoin in the late 1950s

Right now, it is Romola Hanover’s female descendants and what has ended up as useful lines “down under” that I am interested in.

Two are of particular importance here – her Dancer Hanover daughters Romalie Hanover and Romona Hanover.

Romalie Hanover

First, a quick look at one of Romalie Hanover’s sons who has left a thin line in New Zealand – George Allen, by Meadow Skipper.  It’s one of George Allen’s daughters that might ring a bell here, imported Armbro Zip Zap, although her descendants are few and far between now. The only daughter of Armbro Zip Zap breeding on here is Sequita. Sequita is closely related to the former star juvenile in Australia My Handsome Fella 1:59 ($79,573) who had a go as a sire there (346 foals, 95 winners). One of Sequita’s sons Elliot Daniel has done okay  in NZ for owner Bernie Lim (Harnesslink article from 2014), but Lim has not breed much else from the family, although I see he has put Sequita to Art Major this season, which of course links back to Romola Hanover too. Interestingly, Elliot Daniel has turned out to be one of those lovely durable older horses – now leased by Breakout Syndicate and W S Abernethy and trained by Jay Abernathy, he is still racing and had his late (9th) win a week or so ago on 3 April 2016 at Taranaki, as an 8yo.

Romalie Hanover has left a few more branches in New Zealand and Australia through her daughter Dental Floss (what a strange name!!) who is by Columbia George. A daughter of Dental Floss called Only Natural was imported to Australia from America in 1991. It appears Only Natural’s first foal, a filly called Lady Lynda Lee, was bred in America a couple of years prior to that by Bob McArdle, and then brought to New Zealand for breeding, and her third foal Talk About Natural was also based in New Zealand for breeding.

In Australia, (It’s) Only Natural went on to have numerous foals for I M Walsh and R B Woodhouse, the best of them in terms of racetrack performance being the “grind it out” geldings The Don, Boy From Bowral, and Natural Lobell. Nothing that really raised the roof, and this branch has pretty much withered and died.

In New Zealand none of the lines from Lady Lynda Lee proved special either.

The bright spot in this turns out to be Talk About Natural for breeder John Fokerd. But the progeny page for her doesn’t present a pretty picture at first glance. Digging deeper we can find a few veins of minerals the mine, but it is not gold yet.

Talk About Natural’s daughter by Falcon Seelster is She’s A Natural, and she brings me into familiar ground – her Tinted Cloud daughter Umbra (born 2008) is now with breeder G B M Corbett who is obviously wanting a cross with Tintin In America. (And when I look at that cross I can see why). Another of She’s A Natural’s fillies was To Die With Dignity and she was exported to Australia and raced okay herself and has gone on to breed a couple of decent winners by Jereme’s Jet and Always A Virgin, and a registered Courage Under Fire Colt called Ferdinand who would be a 3yo now.

Tracking down the lines of the family gets tricky now, as many don’t appear (yet) in Classic Families, so often it is a matter of working back. I’ve got a couple of examples that I know of, and blog readers are already contributing more (see the comments under the last blog on this topic). To get there, we go back to Talk About Natural and look at what other breeding lines she has produced other than those mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

After all, 6 of her 9 foals were fillies!

One of the most active lines at the moment is in the good hands of blog friend Brian Cowley, who owns the Live Or Die mare Light Of The South, a daughter of Natural Talker, who is an Andrel daughter of Talk About Natural. Technically that puts Romola Hanover 5 x 6 generations back in the pedigree of Light Of The South, as she appears in Live Or Die’s pedigree as well as the mare’s maternal line. It goes like this. Light Of The South was originally owned and bred by Mike Finlayson, another blog friend, who put her to Art Major (a cross back to the family) for a filly called Lyra Finn who was sold on to Australia but didn’t amount to much and became a hack. Brian has followed a less direct route, and I’ll give his comments in the next blog. Suffice to say at this stage he has the very talented and sometimes wayward Articulight (by Art Official) racing at the moment, and a couple more foals in the waiting room. (Background is a blog I wrote in October 2014 with photos of Light Of The South foals at that time)

The first filly from Natural Talker was Mon Repos and she is in Australia after a very modest racing career, and has been an awkward breeder. Her first (2009) raced foal by McArdle is gelding Allies Mate (18 starts, 5 wins and still racing), and the next live foal was born in November last year, by Million Dollar Cam and bred by K M Hall, Victoria. The sire choice is, for me, a positive one – as I will explain in a later blog when I lay my own  thoughts on the line.

Another filly from Natural Talker is Lets Talk Art, now a 9yo mare by Art Major (link back to the family) who won 6 from 45 starts, and $48,525 in stakes. She is now a broodmare who missed to Panspacificflight (another link back to the family), and has since gone these past couple of seasons to Better’s Delight for breeders Mrs M E O’Brien and S A O’Brien.

No other line from Talk About Natural has left anything worth noting.

Romona Hanover

Of course the big and beautiful branch of Romola Hanover’s family comes from another daughter entirely – not Romalie Hanover, but Romona Hanover. That’s the dam of Perfect Profile (dam of Western Edition, Art Major and Perfect Art),  You Can Fly (dam of Panspacific Flight), Real Artist, and World Order.

In terms of female breeding lines here, we have little to go on. A Real Desire daughter of World Order called Cuzzin Sally was imported by Robert Famularo (Cavalla Bloodstock Limited) and bred here for two colts and a filly before she died. One of the male foals is racing in Australia – Cheyenne Warrior by Bettor’s Delight (96 starts, 8 wins, 27 places, $41,515), and the other colt is only a 3yo (by American Idea, Miss Duvall family) called Sands Of Time and has had one start for a 2nd from the Ken Barron training stable down in West Melton, NZ – and is worth keeping an eye out for. The filly is by Sands A Flyin (link back to the family) and is named Laura J. She is a 4yo mare now, and I will be checking to see what the plans are for her.

So in summary Down Under we are pretty much relying on (no pressure, guys!) She’s A Natural’s daughters  Umbra and To Die With Dignity, and Light Of The South’s progeny, and Laura J to make something of the Romola Hanover dynasty “down under”.

Next part of this series will bring some comments from the current breeders.

A virtual chocolate fish to all blog readers who have got to the end of this one!

Thank you for reading this!