Rich Hill bid farewell to Pentire
It’s been a time for reflection over the past week at Rich Hill following the death of the Walton stud’s foundation stallion Pentire.
Twenty-one years after arriving in New Zealand on the stallion shuttle run from Japan, Pentire was struck down with a colic attack last Monday. He was sent for surgery when the veterinary team discovered a tumour on his intestine which was removed without any complications, but sadly Pentire died during the postsurgery recovery stage.
‘‘With a horse like him that’s been such a part of our lives for more than 20 years, he was still fit and fertile and it gets to a stage where you think they’ll be around forever,’’ said Rich Hill general manager John Thompson. ‘‘Life’s not like that as we know, we have to accept that, but it means a lot to us to know that he didn’t have to suffer.’’
Pentire was a star middledistance gallopers in Europe during the mid-1990s and one of a number of horses fitting a similar high-end profile for Japan’s cashrich breeding industry. He was the first stallion to stand at Rich Hill when he made his first shuttle run in 1997, but after an initial positive reception from New Zealand breeders, his support waned to the point that in his fifth year he had just a dozen foals.
As his early progeny matured, however, he overcame that challenge with his major winners including the freakish galloper Xcellent, another dual New Zealand Horse of the Year title-holder Mufhasa, and the horse that brought further kudos late in the stallion’s career, 2015 Melbourne Cup winner Prince Of Penzance.
At the time of his death Pentire was New Zealand’s leading active sire of Group One winners with a tally of 16. Others on his list included the multiple Group One winners Xtravagant and Rangirangdoo. Pentire shuttled between New Zealand and Japan’s Shadai Farm for several years, and after a two-year northern hemisphere shuttle run to Germany he settled permanently at Rich Hill.
‘‘Before we got Pentire, we were a 100-acre agistment farm,’’ says John Thompson. ‘‘Now we’re 320 acres with four other stallions coming up behind him, so we have to be grateful for the big part he has played in the farm’s development.’’