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From Above on the top – Symphonic Hanover best newcomer

The Swedish trotting magazine Travronden published a special issue concerning the best sires of the 3 year old trotters in Sweden. The booklet is interesting insofar, as one can read a statistic from many points of view. Please see the statistics on the right hand side.

It is, on the other hand, quite interesting that From Above is the Champion. His Sire Zoot Suit was a five time Champion-Sire in Sweden, the dam of the latter was the Pacer-Mare Glad Rags. So, it is interesting to take a look back to that maternal family, because From Above seems to be, as of today, the only influential son of his great father so far (his best son on the racetrack, Zoogin, missed it; many breeders saying because of his more or less weak motherline). Glad Rags, born in 1960 by the Pacer Sire Greentree Adios, leads back to the first success of this maternal line, the one of Lady Forrest, born in the USA in the 1850s. The name of this filly was Pearl Benboe, born in 1917 by Benboe, a son of Bingen. With her, that line more or less survived. Her son King Ben, born in 1930 by The Laurel Hall, was one of the fastest trotters of his time and was later exported to Denmark. Another son of Pearl Benboe was the well-known Sir Walter Scott (by Peter Scott), Sire of Iran Scott, influential Sire in Sweden then.

A daughter of Pearl Benboe, Miss Pearl (*1932 by The Laurel Hall), gave birth to Jewel Rosecroft, the dam of Glad Rags. What then happened was something that has been tried many times, but not often with success – the cross of Trotters and Pacers. And it has a lot to do with Menhammar Stuteri, Breeding Champion Farms for many years in Sweden, the home of From Above and many other great Stallions and Racehorses.

The story goes like this: Norman Woolworth, one of the most interesting persons in the trotting sport of the 1960s to the 1980s, was at a Tattersalls Auction when Delvin Miller came to him and told him that he should buy a mare, it was Glad Rags. She was the best older pacing mare in North America, second to the great Meadow Skipper in his last race. Woolworth bought the filly and noticed that she always only trotted when she was on the track before the hobbles were installed. After some foals with pacing stallions, Woolworth decided to breed her to Nevele Pride and told that some friends, including Stanley Dancer. They all were close to a heart attack.

Norman Woolworth was not deterred and went with Glad Rags to Nevele Pride, the result was Zoot Suit. The colt was always at the best of his crop, had a very unlucky race in the final of the Hambletonian of 1976, when Joe O’Brien in the bike of Armbro Regina made a clear foul against Zoot Suit and Vernon Dancer. The laughing third was Steve Lobell, Armbro Regina was set back from the Stewards on the third place behind Zoot Suit.

Zootie, like Woolworth called him, could have made good races in Europe, but he suddenly injured one of his legs, they never found out what has happened. So, the horse with the mix of pacer and trotter blood wouldn’t get a lot of mares in the USA, so Woolworth remembered a visit of Menhammar Stuteri in Sweden, where he had been with some amateur-drivers and left very impressed. He met owner Margareta Wallenius-Kleberg then and wrote her a letter if she is interested to buy Zoot Suit as a Stallion. The deal was done and it was great for Menhammar. Zoot Suit seemed to be the perfect stallion for Sweden, his offsprings healthy in physis and psyche, at home on all distances. Of course, at the beginning, the Swedes were horrified because of the pacer-influence of Zoot Suit, but when the offsprings started to run, they thought Woolworth was a genius...

This lines may also be interesting because of actual income of pacerblood to the Trotting scene with horses like Googoo Gaagaa and maybe later White Bliss. But, both of those are out of great producing Top-3-US-trotting-motherlines, Mambrino Beauty (Nervolo Belle) and Minnehaha.

And it’s no secret that especially in Sweden with persons like Hans Nelén of Global Farms, who wants to have more pacer-blood in Europe to speed up the breed, and also Stall Zet and Lutfi Kolgjini working more and more with pacing lines, this topic will be relevant in the next years.

A short step back to the maternal line of Zoot Suit. It’s a classic piece of a motherline that produced trotters and pacers. After Pearl Benboe it was the pacer Blackhawk that scored in the 1940s, in 1955 the Swedish colt Smaragd (by Locomotive), a grand grandson of Pearl Benboe, won the Derby and also big races in Europe including the Graf Kálmán Hunyady-Gedenkrennen in Vienna. Then it was a little bit quiet around that line, Glad Rags in the 1960s and her son Zoot Suit in the 1970s have been more or less the only examples for success. But then, this line suddenly exploded in the trotting scene. It produced horses like Jurgy Hanover, Jazz Cosmos, Beseiged and Bowlin for Dollars in North America, Double Crown in Germany, BWT Magic in Finland, Yatzy Brodda and Västerbo Daylight in Sweden and at last also some Italian Stars.

At the end, we are talking about From Above and he’s out of the line of the great Nevele Pride, best offspring of Super-Sire Star’s Pride together with Super Bowl, which was and is successful in Sweden. And, what might made him so successful in contrast to Zoogin, should be his maternal line, the one of the US-mare Belle, born in 1866. You can watch all the great offsprings of that line here. 

PS
We would like to recommend an article published in the Austrian Trotting Magazine TRABER WELT in 1995. It’s written in German language, so if you are interested, please use the Google Translator.

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