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Vicki and Terry Pascoe’s latest breeding success has been generations in the making.
30 odd years ago NZTBA Councillor Vicki Pascoe and her husband Terry established Club Med Lodge in Taupiri. Not long after they acquired a stakes winning mare Amrica (Amalgam [USA ] -Frabrica) to help get themselves established.
Bred by Haunui Farm, Amrica won six races including the Gr.3 Manawatu Breeders Stakes and Gr.3 Wellington Stakes before going on to being the dam of the good McGinty colt Greenback. She was 18 before she came to the Pascoe’s farm and they sent her to back to Haunui Farm to be mated with their Danzig (USA) stallion Honor Grades (USA). She produced a filly that was to be her last foal, and that filly became the Group One winning mare Honor Bound.
Last week a grandson of Honor Bound in Honorable Spirit (AUS) (by Charm Spirit [IRE]- Z’Honor) added more black type to that family winning the Listed BRC Queensland Cup (2406m). It was the eighth win for the John Smerdon trained five-year-old gelding who commenced his racing career in Victoria with Henry Dwyer.
He became the 10th stakes individual stakes winner for former Windsor Park Stud shuttle stallion Charm Spirit, while later in the day at Chantilly in France, Lord Charming (GER) became his 11th.
“It was very exciting,” enthused a very delighted Vicki Pascoe. “We are getting lots of winners from Honor Bound’s descendants, they have a great strike rate. It’s wonderful to get another stakes winner in the family to update the pedigree.”
Honorable Spirit is the fourth foal of Z’Honor, a dual winning Zabeel daughter of Honor Bound, who according to Pascoe is actually lucky to still be alive.
“We nearly lost Z’Honor in a race at Tauranga,” recalled Pascoe. “She severed a tendon really badly at the start of a 1600 metre race.
“Fortunately, Matamata vet Dave Keenan was on course that day and when she returned to the birdcage, he bandaged her up and Lou Cole kindly drove me and Z’Honor to Matamata where Andrea Ritmeister repaired the tendon. It was a long way back from that, but we managed to save her, there are a lot of special people who were involved in getting her back to health, our farrier even had to build a special shoe for her.
“Once recovered we sent to her Australia where she was covered by Wanted (AUS), Commands (AUS) and Epaulette (AUS). She produced Stay The Course (Epaulette), a winner in Singapore, before she returned to New Zealand. The next mating was to Charm Spirit, and that is Honorable Spirit.
“The mating with Charm Spirit was pretty obvious in theory, I’m Invincible (IRE) would put more speed into the family. The plan was to get her in foal to a stallion that would appeal to the Australian market and send her over there for her future breeding.
“We decided a long time ago that the best way to get our progeny into Australia was to send the mares over there. So, we initially put them in foal to a stallion that the Australians wanted to buy and that way they get to race there. That’s where we want to see our horses race.
“We have about five mares at Supreme Thoroughbreds at any one time and they do everything with them - walk the mares in, foaling and yearling prep. It’s a fabulous outfit with three farms in Victoria all located not that far from the Oaklands Sales Centre.
“When Terry and I went to sell our yearlings in Melbourne about 12 years ago, nearly all the trainers and agents that came to the barn to view would say “show us your VOBIS horses” they weren’t interested in anything else. So now we have VOBIS bred horses from New Zealand families.”
On returning to Australia Z’Honor was served by Vancouver (AUS), Not A Single Doubt (AUS), So You Think and Brazen Beau (AUS) twice. She has a yearling colt by Brazen Beau (AUS) to sell at Melbourne this summer and is due to foal to him in November.
“We are hoping for a filly as we don’t have one out of her,” said Pascoe. “We sold her only filly foal by Commands as a yearling. The rest of her foals have been colts. We decided now that she is 16 to bring her home, and she will go to Circus Maximus (IRE). This line has crossed well with Galileo (IRE) so it was a no brainer to go there.”
Z’Honor’s dam Honor Bound won six races including the Gr.1 Easter Handicap when it was still an elite handicap race, after running fourth in the New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes the first year it was a Group One event.
Previously that season she had won the Gr.2 Highview Stud Trophy at Ellerslie (now the Rich Hill Mile) and she had also run second in the Gr.1 Waikato Draught Sprint to the mighty mare Sunline. Following the Easter win she ran in the Gr.2 Travis Stakes at Te Rapa and faltered in the straight while in the lead and ended up running second to Conquistar. Subsequently, a slab fracture was found in her knee and the broodmare paddock was beckoning.
Pascoe made the bold move at the time to send her to Galileo who was serving his first season at Coolmore Stud in Australia. That mating produced Bound To Impress who also won two races and went on to be the dam of Alibi (by Darci Brahma) a multiple stakes winner in Singapore. She has also left four other winners in Yellen, Ocean Miss and Boundtobehonored. The latter being retained by the Pascoes and now in their broodmare band.
“If it wasn’t for Honor Bound we wouldn’t be here. And now we are breeding from the third generation of that family,” Pascoe said. “We have four granddaughters of Honor Bound that we are breeding from.
“From Honor Bound herself we have Z’Honor by Zabeel, Bound To Impress by Galileo, a Montjeu mare Honorjeu and two Pentire mares Applauding and Pushtheboundaries. Her last foal by Rip Van Winkle - Honorable Mention is still racing in Australia, and at 24 Honor Bound is a nanny to my yearling fillies.
“We have a half-brother to Honorable Spirit by Brazen Beau to sell at the Melbourne Premier this year and a Sacred Falls filly out of the Pushtheboundaries. The next generation is involved in more ways than one and Adam our son has a Mongolian Khan yearling out of Applauding to sell, and so the legacy continues.” -Michelle Saba, NZTBA
