Photo: Race Images
Following Enchanted Elle’s Taumarunui RSA Gold Cup win at Te Rapa on Saturday, owner Tina Bryant was unable to hold back on her latest thrill in racing.
“I’m so proud of her,” Bryant said with obvious feeling. “It’s awesome to have one good horse and then have another good one from that horse.”
Bryant was referring in the first instance to the good winter galloper Ististar who she raced in the mid-2000s. She was a courageous little Istidaad mare trained by Stephen McKee and won 10 races including the Gr. 3 Cuddle Stakes, two editions of the Listed Tauranga Classic and the Listed Rotorua Classic. According to her regular rider at the time, Michelle Brooks (nee Wenn), she had a heart twice the size of herself, an equally huge will to win and loved wet tracks.
Those traits have been passed on to Ististar’s Jakkalberry daughter Enchanted Elle, who is also of the petite variety and has now won six races. Earlier in this campaign she won another time-honoured winter feature, the Parliamentary Handicap at Trentham.
However, any celebrations of the $50,000 Taumarunui Cup win have been put on hold as Bryant completes a contract nursing role in Kaltjiti, an Aboriginal community in the South Australian desert some 2,000 kilometres north-west of Adelaide and 3,000 kilometres east of Perth.
“There is a population of about 400 here in Kaltjiti, and nowhere to celebrate,” Bryant said when RaceForm tracked her down at her remote outback post. “We do have the internet though, so I was able to watch the race.
“I won’t be celebrating until I get back to Perth in about three weeks’ time. I work for a nursing agency and have been contracting now for about six years all over the Australian outback. There are no doctors out here, and if anyone gets sick we rely on the Royal Flying Doctors Service.
“It’s different out here, nothing like the lush green paddocks back home, but I love my work and moved here as I needed to keep my horses in the style that they were accustomed to. I couldn’t do that on a nurse’s wage in New Zealand.”
Bryant has no intention of moving her horses from New Zealand and is looking forward to seeing them when she returns on holiday in November.
She grew up around horses and rode as a youngster, and while she didn’t go to pony club she enjoyed jumping ponies over fences on the family farm at Roto-o-Rangi on the outskirts of Cambridge.
“I originally came to Australia when I was 19 so I gave all that away,” she recalled. “I came back in 2002 and bought Ististar when she was six months old. I went out to Brighthill Farm, where there were two weanlings for sale.
“My friends up the road had a racehorse so I thought I would get myself one. Although when they first saw her their first reaction was ‘What have you done?’ because as we know she wasn’t very big. But hey, she didn’t cost me much, and I got such a thrill out of her.”
Bryant raced Ististar with her good friends Donald and Marilyn McIntosh, and when she finished racing they sent her to stud. When Bryant decided to return to Australia in 2017, Ististar had not done much as a broodmare, so she was leased to Luigi Muollo’s Explosive Breeding Limited for her first mating with Jakkalberry.
“The first foal Luigi bred from her was Hit The Road Jack, and the second foal was this filly which he didn’t really want, so I bought her back,” she explained.
“I always liked her as a foal she had a big rear end, and I thought maybe she’ll be alright – and she has been really good. She started out with Stephen (McKee) but when he stopped training, I decided to give her to Shaun (Phelan) as he was doing such a good job with her brother Hit The Road Jack.
“I have been really happy with Shaun, he has looked after her, considering she is only a small mare and he likes to keep the weight off her back, which is why she is often ridden by apprentices.
“You couldn’t fault the ride from Jessica Allen on Saturday; it looks like there are some great young apprentices coming through in New Zealand.”
Ististar was one of four winners from the unraced Star Way mare Marlanda Star, who descends from the 1984 Southern Filly of the Year, Hint, who won nine races, five of them at black-type level.
She had one more foal after Enchanted Elle, Sweynesse filly Wee Rhona, who won once before injuring a suspensory ligament, however Ististar passed away earlier this year at age 20.
“It’s a bit sad as she was a beautiful horse, a bit of a tart when she was racing, with a real mind of her own,” mused Bryant.
“However now I have Enchanted Elle and hopefully some more wins and a little bit of black type. I’m so proud of her, she’s just awesome!”
