| HORSES |
YEAR: 1992
 |
Vance Hanover who died suddenly aged 17 at Vance Lodge in South Auckland on Saturday morning at the peak of his mercurial career was a sensational sire. There was no other way to describe him.
The nuggety, unraced stallion - the first son of world champion pacer and sire Albatross to be made available to NZ breeders - rocketed to a pre-eminence that could one day see him heralded as the Hambletonian 10 or the Meadow Skipper of the standardbred industry in this country.
Vance Hanover sired winners from mares of the lowliest credentials to forge himself an initial popularity that led him to attracting record numbers of matrons, eventually including the most fashionable. He shattered all previous records for mares covered, local individual winners and wins and seasonal stakemoney won by his stock. With 10 crops on the tracks, he is well on his way to dominating the sires' premiership for the fifth straight season. The quality of his representatives, who will no doubt dominate our racing for some seasons to come, embraced speed, stamina, versatility and durability, while both his sons and daughters demonstrated these assets and there were already signs that his sons and daughters would breed on successfully.
Helen Andrews, wife of Vance Lodge co-director Eric Andrews, found Vance Hanover dead in his paddock around 8.30 on Saturday morning, some 45 minutes after he had served a mare. "He had served all but three of the 115 mares booked to him here, while down at Templeton, where Kevin Williams has been inseminating South Island mares booked to him, there were about 20 to go of some 120," said Vance Lodge studmaster Fraser Kirk.
Williams confirmed that six mares were inseminated with Saturday's final collection from Vance Hanover. "There will only be about 20 mares miss out, although there are a few mares who have only been inseminated once that we have our fingers crossed for, and these include some good ones, like Bella Regazza, the dam of Giovanetto," said Williams. "We had 70 positives, and I think there will be about 80 booked here get in foal."
Vance Hanover was insured by Andrews and Graham Brown, co-directors of Vance Lodge. Said Kirk: "I thought he would live until he was 30. He was unraced and so strong, and his legs were unmarked. What the future holds now I just don't know." Said Williams: "It is such a shock. We had it teed up beautifully, allowing more than 100 South Island breeders access to him, and everything was working like clockwork. At least we pioneered this semen transportation in New Zealand, and proved that, beyond doubt, it is both viable and successful."
Vance Hanover was the 1975 foal of the Best Of All mare Valentine Hanover, who was from a prized Tar Heel mare Valentine Day. On this good breeding and his own impressive conformation, famed Hanover Shoe Farms in Pennsylvania sold him for $85,000 as a yearling. As an un-raced 2-year-old, he cracked a sesamoid. His trainer, Vernon Dancer, wanted to bring him back into work when the fracture mended, but Vance Hanover's owner indicated she didn't want the horse to race.
He was purchased for New Zealand by Aucklander Noel Taylor and Southland breeding expert Norm Pierce, who first leased him and then, a year later, sold him to the late Dave Jessop. Offered first in 1979 by Jessop at the bargain fee of $400 - to attract as many mares as possible and set his new Placid Lodge base at Waiuku on firm footing - Vance Hanover attracted big numbers of mares, albeit very few of them that could be described as other than nondescript.
While Vance Hanover's earliest sons and daughters showed excellent potential (he was leading sire of 2-year-olds with his secod crop in 1983/84), Jessop kept the fee down at $500. In 1984 he got an amazing total of 402 mares to him - definitely a NZ record and possibly a world best. At this point, Jessop, in ill health, reluctantly let Vance Hanover go to a consortium headed by North Shore accountant Graham Brown, in a deal that put the stallion's value at something close to $1m.
Vance Hanover moved a few kilometres up the road to the newly established Vance Lodge at Waiau Pa on the southern shores of the Manukau Harbour. His fee was hiked to $2000, and, with Trevor Payne his studmaster, his book there in 1985 was 347 mares. It was in this year that, for the first time, a good number of class matrons met up with him, his book including some 50 mares sent from the South Island. To Vance Hanover's everlasting credit, from the many mares booked to him in his earliest years of duty who had not produced anything of account, even to fashionable sires, he achieved an excellent strike-rate of winners to foals.
Vance Hanover was in 1986 re-negotiated to stand at Ivan Pavlovich's plush new Great Northern Bloodstock nursery at Te Aroha, in a deal that put his value close to $2m. With his fee eventually set at $6000, he covered 130 mares there in 1986, after which Pavlovich decided to let him go, by popular demand, to be available to South Island mares at his newly-leased and refurbished stud, Poplar Lane Lodge, Ashburton. At Poplar Lane in 1987, Vance Hanover, at a basic $6000 plus GST, took care of 243 bookings.
In topping the sires' list in 1987/88 for the first time, with only six crops on the tracks (and these virtually all in North Island stables), Vance Hanover set new figures for sire earnings in a season of $1,323,129 and a record number of individual winners during the term - 66. He had 139 starters for the season, who won 156 races in total, including 96 at Alexandra Park. Vance Hanover had burst into the top spot as a result of a remarkable season for his progeny across the spectrum of age-groups and classes. In 1988/89, Vance Hanover eclipsed his previous record total with two months of the term to run, and by season's end his representatives had amassed a whopping $1.62m. His 87 individual winners was another record, and also their 190 wins. In this season he served 264 mares.
Despite Vance Hanover's great work for Great Northern Bloodstock, the Te Aroha showplace was one of several major new North Island stud operations placed in receivership in 1989. Unable to meet the drip-feed financial commitments to hang on to Vance Hanover, Pavlovich was forced to return him to his former owners. Vance Lodge co-directors Graham Brown and Eric Andrews announced the stallion would be set up permanently back at Waiau Pa. With Fraser Kirk giving up training horses to become studmaster, he would cover some 220 mares per season (per medium of AI) with a basic fee of $5000.
The now 15-year-old, for the third straight season, broke records, his progeny winning 220 races and $2,182,441 in NZ. In 1990/91, Vance Hanover for the fourth straight year emerged as premier NZ sire. This time his 231 starters won a total of 173 races in NZ for $2,152,039 - just short of his 1989/90 record.
Pre-empting the official decision in July 1991 by Conference to allow fresh or chilled transported semen, Vance Lodge struck a deal with Kevin (Master Mood) Williams, master of Tall Tree Stud Farm at Templeton, announcing in June that semen for Vance Hanover would be sent south for use on mares agisted at Williams's property. Acknowledging the difficult economy, Vance Lodge dropped Vance Hanover's basic fee to $4000. Other notable stud farm operators protested the arrangement before themselves seeing the light and setting up similar inter-island semen transport for their stallions.
In the current season to date, Vance Hanover's progeny in NZ are well on the way to putting their sire on top for the fifth straight year, almost certainly with another record stake tally. Way out in front on the sires' list once more, he boasts the winners of 71 races and $1.1m - more than three times the amount won by the stock of his closest rival, Smooth Fella.
Credit: Ron Bisman writing in HRWeekly 15Jan92