Gay Helen making her mark

Trying to predict how harness racing mares will perform at stud is like trying to predict which politician will keep his word.

In other words it is a fruitless pursuit but all breeders do it to some degree or other.

Sometimes the immediate results can be very disappointing and then suddenly two or three generations later the family blossoms.

Such is the fickle game of breeding horses.

One mare who disappointed when put to stud many years ago was Gay Helen.

The racewinning daughter of Gay Piper was a full sister to the cup class pacer Mobile Globe and much was expected of her but she only left two winners, that being the one win trotting mare Frivolous and Three Tens.

Three Tens left several smart age group trotters such as Pitcher (8 wins), Signor Gabrielli (8 wins), Four Leaf (5 wins) and Ten Four (4 wins) who is the grand dam of the brilliant Habibti 1:56.5 ($325,465) and Habibti Ivy (2015 NZ Trotting Oaks). 

However Frivolous wasn't much better at stud than Gay Helen leaving just one trotting winner as well but one of her daughters Fickle has righted the ship bigtime.

Fickle has left three classy winners in Without Fear (NZ Trotting Oaks), Fear Not ($47,505) and the 2005-2006 NZ Two year old Trotting Filly of the Year in Fear Factor ($59,192) who won the NZ Sires Stakes Championship at two.

At stud Fear Factor has already left one better than herself in the form of Prince Fearless 1:55.2 ($146,034) who was a factor in all the three year old classics last season and has made the step up to the best grades at four, the highlight so far being a 13 1/2 length victory at Addington on Cup Day.

A full brother to Prince Fearless will be offered as Lot 25 at this years Australasian Classic Yearling Sale at Karaka, in Auckland on February 22nd.

Named Stress Factor, the son of Majestic Son is a long barreled athletic type who looks every inch a trotter

Gay Helen may have made a poor start to her breeding career but mares tracing to her have certainly made up for it in the last twenty years and in Stress Factor they look to have a likely type to add to the family record.

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