Racing Is Fun

It is when you're winning!

The title of this post refers specifically, however, to a stallion of the same name I was associated with in my years at Haunui Farm.

It's interesting to see him feature as the sire of the grandam of two recent high-profile stakeswinners, Cat's Fun (Catbird-She's Zeel, by Zabeel-She's Fun, by Racing Is Fun), winner yesterday of the G2 C B Cox Stakes in Perth, and Tears I Cry (Lacryma Cristi-Cassazione, by Salieri-Weekend Delight, by Racing Is Fun), winner of the G1 VRC Emirates Stakes at Flemington.

Giving Zabeel credit for Cat's Fun's stamina is almost certainly where it's due - what other Catbird looks like going 3200m except in a float? Only 10% of Catbird's winners have won at any distance beyond 1600m at any level. Zabeel will go down in history as one of the all-time great stamina influences. But the grandam She's Fun might be the source of some of Cat's Fun's racing class as she was a top rate perfomer in New Zealand, winning six Group and Listed races during her career. Weekend Delight, grandam of Tears I Cry, won two races including the G1 VRC Oaks. She was a good thing beaten in the G2 Wakeful Stakes the weekend before and among her later performances were fourths in races such as the G1 VATC Underwood Stakes and G2 Memsie Stakes.

They typified the best progeny of Racing Is Fun [USA], they were seldom one race wonders. His stock tended to be only medium height but they had length and were as tough as nails. He was that way himself, long to the point of almost being dip-backed and extremely straight through the hocks.

Racing Is Fun, whose fourth dam Constant was Australian-bred, won the G1 Hollywood Derby and sired 12 stakeswinners, eight of them fillies. Fun On The Run, which we took to two sales, failing to get a bid ($20,000 would have bought her) won 12 stakes races including G1 amongst her 18 wins. She was only a pony but nevertheless outstanding until you spat on the track - her incredibly long, low action was rendered useless and she lost her balance. Her dam was a poor specimen named Frenichie [Ire], an unraced, almost twin-like, slip of a thing by Jim French [USA] from a very tough family, bought for a pittance under the tree at Newmarket and sent to New Zealand. The late, great bloodstock auctioneer and race caller, Peter Kelly, leased Fun On The Run and exercised the right-of-purchase soon after she began racing. Another tinytot filly by Racing Is Fun was Nat The Brat who won five Group and Listed races.

Racing Is Fun, as a stallion, had moments of popularity but was only truly 'commercial' for a season or two while these good fillies were strutting their stuff. His pedigree was from left field - by Olympiad King [by Curragh King, a son of Nasrullah]-Flower Box, by Windy Sands [by Your Host] - no one at Coolmore, Darley or Arrowfield is hyperventilating with excitement, I can assure you. One of his half-sisters produced Toledo (At Talaq), also a top-of-the-ground horse who won a G1 Stradbroke Handicap. Because of the physical types he left - they were seldom hulking, gleaming sales yearlings - the Racing Is Funs never threatened any sales records. They were all bays and browns, he was colour dominant.

Tough, nuggety little things. I believe they made excellent polo ponies. Don't knock polo ponies. The sixth dam of Weekend Hussler was one of them.