APG Graduates Line Up for Inter Dominion Glory

It is now 88 years since the inaugural running of the Inter Dominion Championships at Gloucester Park in Perth. 

This time-honoured Race is open to any horse of either sex or from anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere, which still makes the Final the most important event on the Southern Hemisphere Harness racing Calendar. 

The 2024 edition of the Inter Dominion Championships will be fought out at Menangle this Saturday night. 

Although most of the finalists are Australian owned, five were bred in New Zealand and seven in Australia. 

Of those seven Aussie bred horses, five of them were purchased at the annual APG Yearling Sales. 

They are in alphabetical order: 

	Sale Price	Current Earnings
Captains Knock [by Captaintreacherous]	$36,000	$515,576
Curly James [by A Rocknroll Dance]	$44,000	$331,512
Don Hugo [by Art Major]	$82,500	$1,260.774
Jilliby Nitro [by Bettors Delight]	$80,000	$472,385
Max Delight [by Bettors Delight]	$245,000	$1,175,224

 

Don Hugo and Curly James are the first foals of their Dams, Max Delight is the second foal, Jilliby Nitro is a third foal whilst Captains Knock’s dam produced four previous foals before he arrived on the scene. 

If Captains Knock is successful on Saturday night, he will become the second Inter Dominion winner from his Family, with Elsu being a dominant winner in 2005. 

Don Hugo is related to one of the greatest horses Never to win the Inter Dominion in the champion Kiwi pacer Courage Under Fire. 

Then Curly James is closely related to one of Australia’s greatest females, who never contested an Inter Dominion -  Ladies In Red. 

The above five horses now have combined earnings of $3,755,470 - with the promise of much more to come. 

Should one of these five horses win the Final on Saturday night, they will join Leap To Fame, Smolda, Smooth Satin and Shakamaker as the 5th APG graduate to take home an Inter Dominion trophy this century. 

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There is a wide range of Stallions being represented at this year’s Inter Dominion Final. 

The champion sire Bettors Delight has two representatives in Jilliby Nitro and Max Delight. 

However the other ten finalists are by ten different sires - they being A Rocknroll Dance , Always B Miki , Art Major , Captaintreacherous , Sportswriter , Sweet Lou , Rocknroll Hanover , Tintin In America , Terror To Love and Well Said. 

In The Pocket is the only Broodmare sire with more than one credit – they being Captains Knock and Petes Said So. 

It has been proven time and time again that you don’t need to have a mare with great racetrack performance to breed an elite performer.  The breeding of this Final field of twelve contestants highlights this fact. 

Sure Max Delight is a son of the brilliant racemare Lady Euthenia, the winner of $461,285.  My Moonlight Dream’s dam also won $184,249. 

At the other end of the spectrum both Don Hugo’s and Curly James’s dams were unraced whilst Terry’s dam showed little ability in earning just $2,606. 

In between four Dams won in the range of $10,000 and $40,000 – those being the dams of  

• Minstrel $10,580 

• Petes Said So  $13,326 

• Captains Knock $25,251 

• Nerano $36,311. 

Then three dams of finalists won in the range of $50,000 to $80,000 – those being.  

• Jilliby Nitro $50,080 

• Jimartee $54,923 

• Dangerous  $78,353.