The Orange

This week marked the running of France’s premier horse race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, near Paris.

I think it’s at Paris and frankly you don’t know better either but I digress.

In most cases, this would be of little interest in the Antipodes but the 1977 race featured a runner from New Zealand, Balmerino (who ironically also featured on an episode of Bro Town in a quiz question).

The race – as most are – is full of conjecture with a lasting view that Balmerino was poorly ridden on the day.

Regardless, his second in one of the top horses races in the world put NZ racing in the spotlight.

Here’s the race replay:

A great summary of Balmerino’s career can be found on the NZ Racing News site:

Balmerino is remembered for a pioneering odyssey which brought the New Zealand thoroughbred to the world stage. Less remembered is what a good galloper he proved in New Zealand and Australia before setting out on his world travels. Bred and raced by Waikato dairy farmer Ralph Stuart, who had bred very successfully from the family previously, Balmerino was by Trictrac from the grand broodmare Dulcie. Stuart usually sold his colts; the elderly farmer was persuaded by brash young trainer Brian Smith to keep Balmerino after Smith won five races with older half-sister Mia Bella to keep the ledger in the black. Balmerino was the outstanding three-year-old of 1975-76, proving not only his class but his strength through a campaign that began in the spring and ended in the Queensland winter. That campaign embraced 18 starts and netted 14 wins and three seconds. That resilience stood to Balmerino when, after a four-year-old season which nevertheless provided wins in the Air New Zealand Stakes, Awapuni Gold Cup, Sydney Autumn Stakes and Hastings Ormond Memorial, he headed for Europe. Stopping off on the way in California, where he notched a win despite missing his main target, he won the Valdoe Stakes at Goodwood first-up in England and on that light preparation he ran a rather unlucky second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe to the very good three-year-old Alleged (who won the Arc again the following year). Balmerino then went to Italy, where he finished first in the Gran Premio del Jockey Club but was relegated to second. Allowing that as at least a moral victory, Balmerino had now won in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, England, Italy and finished a luckless second in France’s most prestigious race.As a six-year-old stallion Balmerino had one more campaign and, though he’d lost some of his zest for racing, he still managed a win in the Clive Graham Stakes at Goodwood and seconds in the Coronation Cup at Epsom and the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown. He returned home to stand at Middlepark Stud, Cambridge, and sired some quality gallopers despite suffering the quick abandonment by breeders that was the lot of “colonial-bred” stallions at that time.