Browne influence lives on with another Pakuranga Hunt Cup win

It’s more than 18 years since Hall of Fame horseman Ken Browne died, but his influence continues as we were reminded at Te Rapa last Saturday when Ima Wonder won the Bridges Insurance Services Pakuranga Hunt Cup.
Carrying the colours that have been famous in jumps racing since the 1970s, Ima Wonder emulated her dam Ima Heroine and 11 other horses of similar ilk to win the Pakuranga Hunt’s flagship race. The Great Northern Steeplechase back at Te Rapa on September 15 now beckons, when Ima Wonder will bid to complete the same double as her dam 13 years ago and, mirroring their Pakuranga Hunt Cup record, become the Brownes’ 13th winner of the great race.
The round dozen of Great Northern wins were all over the unique but now non-existent steeplechase course known as the Ellerslie Hill. That was then and this is now it could be said, but there’s something else that will bring special meaning to the 2024 edition, and most of all if Ima Wonder can stamp her authority over a field headed by defending title-holder and triple Grand National winner West Coast.
As modest as she is by her very nature, for a myriad of reasons Ken Browne’s wife Ann couldn’t hide the satisfaction she took from Ima Wonder’s Pakuranga Hunt Cup win.
At an admittedly spritely 85 years, she now leaves the heavy lifting to others, in Ima Wonder’s case Matamata couple Peter and Jess Brosnan. Her special pleasure at Ima Wonder’s achievements is that like herself and her late husband had been for decades, the Brosnans are completely hands on, have jumps racing in their blood, and make the jumps schooling facilities on their farm available to outside horses and riders.
Then there are the bloodlines that were so evident last Saturday when her 18-year-old jockey Kylan Wiles let Ima Wonder stride forward with a round to go. The Browne connection to the line goes back five generations, to a mare born in 1957 named Miss Luca.
“Kenny rode Miss Luca at a picnic meeting down at Taihape and while she didn’t exactly do much, he thought she’d make a good polo pony,” Ann told RaceForm. “We ended up with her and she actually became a good broodmare for us.”
Ima Wonder’s Arion Pedigrees printout, all the way back to Miss Luca’s dam Bottom Form, fits on a single page – definitely not commercial but in jumping terms completely fit for purpose. The three steeplechase winners produced by Miss Luca included Pulka, a winner over the Ellerslie and Te Rapa country and runner-up in a Wellington Steeplechase.
Pulka’s sire North Pole, by the English and Irish Derby winner Santa Claus and a steeplechase winner in England, was imported by Ken Browne, who his wife recalls put on a quite different show for stallion parade visitors to their Pukekura farm.
“Kenny would ride him, jump him over a few logs and fences to demonstrate what the horse was good at. We got a few mares, not a lot, and he ended up with Gordon Sutherland down at Jedburgh Stud.”
Pulka went to stud and produced two winners from four foals, while her unraced Ivory Hunter daughter Ima Hunter produced Ima Heroine, by Heroicity, who won just three races but the quality of her Pakuranga Hunt Cup-Great Northern Steeplechase was sufficient to earn Champion Jumper honours in 2012.
Ima Wonder, by the Zabeel-Eight Carat horse Eighth Wonder, was Ima Heroine’s first foal, born when she was 14 years old, and her only subsequent foal was a colt by Jakkalberry named Ima Jakkal, who his owner-breeder describes as “a really nice horse” but whose promising career ended with a leg infection.
Ann was still actively riding when the now nine-year-old Ima Wonder was going through her early development and recalls being encouraged by the signs she showed.
“I rode her a few times, she wasn’t big when she was younger but she felt big, and the other thing I noticed was her slow heart-rate – that’s always been a big thing with our jumpers.
“I chose Peter and Jess to train her because they’re good, hard-working young people – and so are a lot of others too – and they do a lot for everyone else, I suppose just like Kenny and I used to.
“It’s good to see young riders like Kylan coming through too. Before the race on Saturday I said to him ‘Don’t think you have to be a sheep, you don’t have to follow them – if you think she’s going well enough don’t be scared to go to the front’.
“Wasn’t it good to see him do just that? He’s only young, but I’m happy to stay with him if we get to the Northern. I’ve never taken a winning jockey off and I’m not going to change now.
“Providing everything goes to plan, it’s great to think Peter and Jess will have Auld Jock in the race too. They won with that other mare of theirs (Jakama Krystal) at Hawera on Sunday, so good on them – they deserve some success and I’m just happy to be part of it.
“I suppose West Coast will be there too, but that’s good, we all want to see a good contest. We know jumps racing is under the spotlight, so what better way to show we still matter!”