Sixty Years After Kingster, Les Gibson Buys in Sydney Again
09-02-2012
RARE anywhere in the world in horse selling would have been the purchase of two yearlings at last week’s Inglis Sydney Classic sale by a buyer who bought his first horse at the same sales centre nearly sixty years earller.
It was in a period when booming wool prices put a lot of money in the pockets of the graziers and saw last week’s buyer then a young grazier from Narromine in western New South Wales by the name of Les Gibson, take part of his wool cheque to the Sydney Easter sale and, through Randwick trainer Jack Green, splurge 1000 guineas ($2,100) on a brown colt by the new imported sire Star Kingdom and from Canvas Back, a nicely bred imported English mare. It was a good price at that sale, but not in the leading forty in Australia that year, one in which the most expensive was 6500 guineas ($13,650) paid in Sydney for a Delville Wood colt.
Despite the fact he ranked among the most brilliant top flight performers introduced into Australia to that time, none of the progeny of that first crop of the Baramul stud, Widden valley based Star Kingdom made the top forty highest priced lots. It was a different scene twelve months later, buyers clamouring for his stock to the extent that three of the four most expensive yearlings in that year, including the highest priced lot, were by Star Kingdom.
Paving the way for the improved reverence was the colt which Les Gibson bought and raced. He became the first of long glory list for Star Kingdom when he was his first starter and winner, taking the first New South Wales juvenile race of 1954-55, the AJC Breeder’s Plate on debut. This effort was followed a week later by the success of the first Star Kingdom filly to race, Ultrablue, in the opening juvenile event for her sex, the Gimcrack.The double was a rare feat for a sire, but one that Ajax also registered with his first crop ten years earlier.
Kingster ended up being named champion 2-year-old of 1954-55, racing six times for four wins, including the Breeders’ Plate and Sires’ Produce Stakes at Randwick and the Merson Cooper at Caulfield, and a second at Randwick in the Champagne.The Golden Slipper, a race taken out in its first five years by offspring of Star Kingdom, was not launched until 1957. Kingster went on to be one of the great gallopers of his time. At three he won the AJC Hobartville Stakes, MVRC W.S. Cox Plate (beat Caranna, Sailor’s Guide, Redcraze and Rising Fast), VRC Newmarket and C.M. Lloyd Stakes and at four the AJC George Main Stakes, All-Aged Stakes and QTC Stradbroke – carrying 9 stone 4 pounds (59.0kg).
At conclusion of his racing Les Gibson stood Kingster on the stud he established on Compton, his property at Narromine, but he died after only two very light seasons. He was, however, the forerunner of a number of sires used at Compton, including London Cry, Ballymacad and Rocky Thumb.
Les was assisted in the acquisition of Rocky Thumb by Adelaide bloodstock salesman David Coles. Ninety later this year, David is still involved in racing and breeding. Also now in his eighties and among the gathering at last week’s Sydney sale, Les Gibson may have been stimulated by one of his yearling selections, a colt by the Zeditave sire Strategic and from the Danehill mare Hippy Deluxe offered by Broadwater Thoroughbreds,Scone, having in its breeding three doses of Kingster’s sire Star Kingdom.
Courtesy of Brian Russell Bloodstock Media Service
