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NYALLO SCOTT - Enigma

NYALLO SCOTT - Enigma

For much of his career Nyallo Scott was regarded around Roydon Lodge as a rogue. In the Roydon Lodge history penned by Sir Roy McKenzie he doesn't even earn a mention. But in the mid 1940's he was, for a time, the best known horse in the country.

The secret was Sir John McKenzie handing him to Leo Berkett to train on a lease arrangement at his Hope farm near Nelson. Leo regularly worked his horses between the shafts of a plough. Nyallo Scott was six and a lost cause to anyone but Leo when he went to a Nelson meeting in June and won three races with him in four starts. Two of those races were in succession. He won the first and was second in the other, a rare feat indeed though it wasn't the only time Berkett had tried it. With another rising star among his team called Highland Fling , Berkett transferred permanently to Templeton with Nyallo Scott.

Once he had the horse in shape Berkett didn't give a "thinker" the chance to reflect. As a 7yo he had 38 starts, yes 38, but the good news was that he won 11 of them. No horse had ever done that before. He went from a low class race at New Brighton in September to running against the Cup horses at Ashburton in June, winning the rich Dunedin Cup along the way. Two months later he beat stars like subsequent InterDominion winner Emulous in the August Free-For-All.

Then, as if to prove that you can't keep a bad horse up, it was over. Berkett drove him instead of the superior Highland Fling in the 1947 Cup because nobody else could but he broke early and lost any real chance. After some more erratic disappointments Berkett returned him to Roydon Lodge. He started in the Cup in 1948 but was pulled up after another wayward performance and he never won another race. But 38 for 11 in one season now there's a stat!

Credit: David McCarthy writing in Harnessed July 2016