Each year the National Yearling Sales holds
plenty of interest for Marie Leicester, but this time there's more happening
for her both before and after she attends Karaka.
The successful Auckland owner-breeder is a regular vendor at the New Zealand
Bloodstock National Yearling Sales and her four-strong draft at Karaka will
include a cracking Not A Single Doubt – Meleka Belle filly (Lot 371), whose
profile could be boosted on New Year's Day.
The filly is a half-sister to last season's NZ Champion Two-Year-Old Melody
Belle, who is a leading candidate for the Gr.1 Sistema Railway (1200m) at
Ellerslie. Melody Belle was bred by Leicester from the highly successful Belle
family established by her parents, James and Annie Sarten.
After the sales and into February Leicester will do her final duties as a
director of the NZ Racing Hall of Fame with the biennial function set to be
staged at the SKYCITY Hamilton on Friday, February 9.
"I've been involved for 12 years, since the outset, and thoroughly enjoyed my
time with the Hall Of Fame, but I feel it's time I stood down," she said.
"I felt when we started if we didn't do something a lot of history would be
lost. There is such wonderful history in New Zealand racing and it's been
wonderful learning about the early horses and early administrators. I heard Dad
talking of some of them when I was growing up and some I didn't know."
Leicester still clearly remembers the pressure in getting the inaugural NZ
Racing Hall of Fame dinner off the ground at Ellerslie in March 2006. "We got
by that first year by the skin of our teeth," she said.
Of the 66 current Hall of Fame inductees, Foxbridge (inducted in 2008) and
Seton Otway (2016) are special to Leicester.
"It was with Foxbridge and Seton Otway that the whole Belle family started for
my family," she said.
"I have the original receipt of the 37 pounds Dad paid to Mr Otway for that
first service to Foxbridge framed and hanging in my home."
James Sarten borrowed the mare Belle Star from New Plymouth butcher George
Tremlett and bred Belle Fox. "Belle Rosa became known as Mum's line while the
Belle Time line was Dad's family. They were both from Belle Fox," Leicester
said.
Leicester grew up enjoying the Belle success. "I look at the trophies here and
remember the days they won, horses like Star Belle and Honey Belle," Leicester
said. "There are so many great memories."
Belle Fox's second foal, Supreme Court, won the 1956 Railway Handicap and
memories of that day were rekindled for Leicester after she won the 1998
Railway Handicap with Coogee Walk, a mare she bred and raced after buying her
dam, Boardwalk Angel, in a Trelawney Stud dispersal sale.
Now 20 years after Coogee Walk's major win, Melody Belle will be attempting to give
Leicester her third Railway highlight, even though she sold her at the 2016
Premier Yearling Sale at Karaka.
"You've sold them but they are still your babies," she said. "It was your idea
for the mating and you watched them grow so you never lose interest in them."
Bought by David Ellis for $57,500 and raced by Fortuna Melody Belle Syndicate,
Melody Belle won the Karaka Million (1200m), Gr.1 Courtesy Ford Manawatu Sires
Produce Stakes (1400m) and Gr.2 Queensland Sires' Produce Stakes (1400m) within
three starts last season and she resumed with a solid third behind Volpe Veloce
at Ellerslie recently.
Leicester served nine years as president of the Taupo Racing Club after her and
her husband, Nelson, shifted north from their Feilding sheep farm to Taupo in
1998. Since her husband's death in 2016, Leicester has been living in Remuera
and having closer contact with her horses at Haunui Farm.
"I've got 10 broodmares and most of them are from the Belle line," she said. "I've
had nine foals this year and I've got four yearlings for the sales."
As well as Melody Belle's half-sister, Leicester's Karaka line-up in the Haunui
Farm draft consists of colts by Savabeel from Annie Higgins, Showcasing from
Tsarina Belle and Dundeel from Belle Fleur.
"I'd be bored to tears if I didn't have my horses," she said. – NZ
Racing Desk.