Klondyke Girl – A stellar career remembered

On Saturday 5th August Racetime Raceway hosted the second annual “Klondyke Girl Memorial” race meeting in honour of one of the greatest race mares that ever graced the tracks of the British Isles. The press office of NISA, the officially recognised body for the sport in the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland have released a compilation of her feats in an article specially commissioned for Harnesslink.

It’s a tale as old as time itself. He sees her for the very first time, he instantly falls in love. But as is so often the case – she is with another.

Fortunately, in this instance it was a beautiful four-year-old harness racing filly that captivated the man in question and not a woman – so he set his heart on having her. And eventually he got her. Together they reached the highest of heights in harness racing.

Here is the remarkable story of Klondyke Girl (Tarport Bill), one of the best race mares to ever set foot on a track in the British Isles

Rewind back to 1993 in the Scottish Highlands and as a result of mating between the stallion Almondell Prince (Tarport Bill/Almondell Princess) out of the mare Yankee Breeze (Yankee Begone/Breeze On) a frisky bay filly was born on the family farm of Will Cowan of Slamannan, north-west of the capital city of Edinburgh, Scotland.

“She was imposing right from the outset” according to Gregor Menzies, who assisted his father John in bringing her into the world. Very inquisitive, she was alert and just exuded intelligence. We liked her from day one and despite what many would consider unfashionable breeding, nobody told her that. As far as she was concerned, she was a diva and bossed the other occupants of every field she was put into” mused Gregor reminiscing about the early days.

Not many people know that she wasn’t always called Klondyke Girl for owner/breeder originally named her Hanover Girl. On trying to get her registered however the licensing authority STAGBI prevented anybody from using that prefix/suffix acknowledging the worldwide recognition of the legendary Hanover Shoe Farms brand in the sport. Cowan then settled on Klondyke Girl, as the Klondyke was the name given to the field in which she was born. 

Relatively straightforward to break in she went unraced at 2 but displayed abundant promise. she fulfilled her early promise by winning her first 3 starts at three, at local track Corbie Wood (Stirling) and at Wolshingham in England, a turf track. It was a sign of things to come, as although she was quite effective on traditional hard tracks it was on the turf where she really came into her own.

Such an affinity for racing on this surface wasn’t lost on her then trainer and considering there are more turf tracks than hard tracks in the UK they knew they could capitalise on this ability and prowess. The turf track races were also very often competed over further than the standard mile and she thrived on the extended distances of those races. 

Her final start of that breakthrough season however was almost the final start of her entire career as she unexpectedly fell at Corbie Wood resulting in a broken sulky and a night in hospital for her driver Gregor Menzies. Later he would claim that she just ran too fast and free into the opening bend and being a tight 2 ½ laps to a mile circuit she didn’t possess the track craft at that stage of her career to navigate the bend effectively. Luckily that spill left no physical or mental scars, and she was put away to pasture for the winter. 

Although carefully and astutely campaigned by the Menzies family in her sophomore season she still would have been considered “under the radar” at that time and they were purposely reticent to thrust her into the limelight at the more extreme competitiveness of the bigger venues until they felt that she could truly do herself justice. But with every start at age four she just got better and better. 

That’s when she came to attention to Belfast native Peter Lyttle. It was as the saying goes “love at first sight” but what first prompted Lyttle to follow her career before pursuing her? Well, it transpires that he had owned and campaigned an old warrior by the same sire as Klondyke Girl called Adios Prince (both were by Almondell Prince) and spotting her in a race at Musselburgh where he was spectating, he just knew he had to buy her.

After protracted negotiations a deal was done and a lifelong association with the Menzies family was formed, that still exists to this day.   

In 1998 her first season trained and driven by Lyttle she won a heat and final at Ayr Racecourse. In the 1999 campaign she dead-heated in 2:00 at Portmarnock before going on to win her heat at Musselburgh (finishing 5th in the final) By the 2000 season she was truly a force to be reckoned with multiple wins in free-for-alls against best colts and fillies in Ireland at Annaghmore and Portmarnock often timed in 1:58. Whatever the track, whatever the distance she raced over and whatever the competition she was pitched against she racked up wins and danced every dance.    

Musselburgh was arguably her favourite venue to compete at boasting a record of 5 victories around there including 3 heats, a free-for-all and a Famous Musselburgh Cup final. This is a unique venue on the outskirts of Edinburgh, its uniqueness is that it’s a turf venue 1 mile and 3 furlongs in circumference and the horse’s pace clockwise. Each race consists of just 1 circuit and there is a gradual uphill climb to the finish. No horse has ever won at Musselburgh  four years in a row, and this is a record unlikely to be ever eclipsed or even equaled as the iconic track closed forever to harness racing at the start of 2022.  

In fact, she never returned home from Scotland to her Northern Irish stable without a red rosette be it wins at Corbie Wood, Ayr or her beloved Musselburgh. Having visited the winner’s enclosure 24 times from 1997 to 2005 and with nothing left to prove retirement beckoned. Her place in the annals of UK/Irish harness racing history was assured. 

The breeding barn was her next port of call as her daughters Blazing Bad Zulu and Rio Bravo subsequently followed the path of their mother to the coveted “Mare Of The Year” Titles with the IHRC, ITHRF and NISA proving beyond doubt that her legacy lives on through her bloodline.

She lived out her days on the family farm and Peter would say she was more like a guard dog as she would whinny and snort and make one hell of a commotion if a strange car came up the driveway to the house. She really was the queen of all she surveyed and protectors of her human keepers. 

Some would say it’s fitting that the great mare passed away peacefully in her retirement pasture on the eve of the Musselburgh meeting in July of 2021 and although initially devastated the Lyttle’s soon came to terms with her passing and now only feel pride to have had her in their lives for all of those years. They know they were blessed to have owned and successfully campaigned a champion for the best part of a decade. 

Today, the racing of Standardbreds still remains very much a family affair for the Lyttle’s. In the past wife Gillian assisted with the administration of the sport for NISA the governing body of the sport in Northern Ireland whilst daughters Rebecca, Jessica and Melissa can be found on race days helping with the harnessing up or cheering their father to victory from the grandstand.

In memory of Klondyke Girl they sponsor an entire days racing every year at Racetime Raceway and they try to specially train some of her offspring with this meeting in mind. On Saturday her daughter Rio Bravo was entered up to try and win the memorial cup in honour of the great mare herself. Unfortunately, there wasn’t to be a fairytale ending and Rio Bravo failed to qualify for the final, which was won by Alpha Papa, with a full race report of the entire meeting being published in tomorrow’s Harnesslink.

Epitaph:

The Klondyke is a region in the Northwest of Canada famed for the prospecting of gold in the early 1900’s. Peter Lyttle however, never had to travel thousands of miles to strike gold – it lay just 150 short miles away in Scottish Highlands. Klondyke Girl, she may be gone but she will never be forgotten.

by Thomas Bennett, for Harnesslink