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GLOAMING
More than 70 years after he ran his last race, the winning sequence of 19 which Gloaming shared with his great contemporary Desert Gold remains the New Zealand record. But for an unexpected defeat by Thespian – a horse he trounced at his next start – as a six-year-old, Gloaming would in fact have won 29 in a row. By the end of his marvellous career, Gloaming had raced 67 times, won 57 times, run nine seconds – and taken no part in the only race in which he was unplaced. Trained by Dick Mason for a new patron, the Canterbury station-holder George Dean Greenwood, Gloaming (The Welkin-Light) was taken back to Australia, where he was bred, to have his first start – and won the Chelmsford Stakes, as a maiden, by eight lengths! Next up he won the AJC Derby; then he returned home to win the New Zealand and Great Northern Derbys as well, his feat of winning three Derbys unprecedented at that time. His class thoroughly established, Gloaming was to cross and re-cross the Tasman no fewer than 15 times over the next four seasons. On separate visits to Australia, year after year, he met and matched the latest champ… Poitrel and Beauford, Heroic and Ballymena. Gloaming closed out his career at Hastings, the course which was to launch latter-day champions 75 years on. The oldtimer fought a memorable match race with a brilliant sprinter named The Hawk, then a six-year-old at the height of his powers – and beat him.Race Record: 67 starts, 57 wins, 9 seconds Gloaming was sponsored by the specialty bloodstock publication - Australasian Turf Monthly.
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Cam Greenwood (Gloaming owner’s grandson) & Gerald Fell (Chairman)
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