Team Bourke celebrate a massive double

Taranaki enthusiast Eddie Bourke has probably lost count of how many times he has celebrated wins by horses he has bred and raced, but events of the past week have trumped any before them.
Last Wednesday at Matamata One Bold Cat went to the top of Bourke’s list by winning the rescheduled Gr. 1 Arrowfield Stud Plate. Closer to home three days later at Hawera, his fellow Robbie Patterson-trained The Hottie completed a massive double with victory in one of the province’s major races, the Gr. 3 Grangewilliam Stud Taranaki Breeders’ Stakes.
“I had just got over Wednesday’s party on Friday, then it was time to go again but I had to flag it on Sunday,” an uncomplaining Bourke told RaceForm as he reflected on the back-to-back feature wins.
“You’ve got to make the most of these moments – it can come in a rush but it can also stop in a rush – but for someone my age there is a limit.”
Horses carrying Bourke’s black and yellow colours are bred and raced in a partnership that also includes his daughter Nicola and Canterbury-based Allan Piercy, a veterinarian in Waverley when Bourke first met him some 35 years ago.
The trio raced One Bold Cat’s impeccably-bred sire The Bold One with Southland’s Dennis family and have remained partners since he retired to take up duties at Grangewilliam Stud in 2016. The son of Fastnet Rock and dual Group One-winning O’Reilly mare The Jewel is now the sire of 29 winners from 58 starters, headed by One Bold Cat, Wellington Cup winner Mary Louise, Australian stakes winner Bold Mac and stakes-placed The Fearless One.
Bold Mac is the odd one out from that group, the other three having been bred and raced by the Bourke-Piercy partnership along with other progeny of The Bold One such as New Zealand St Leger placegetter The Underbelly.
For Eddie Bourke and partners, breeding and racing thoroughbreds is about having fun, and in that respect it’s been a barrel-full.
“I had uncles and cousins who had horses with great trainers like Wally McEwan, and when I was young I got to see him and others like Don Couchman, Herbie Bergerson, Brian Deacon and Brian Hayter down at the track. ‘Watch and listen’ I would be told.
“Growing up we would head to the races, we’d take a cricket bat or a rugby ball, Mum would pack a hamper full of tucker and we’d play games between races.
“Now I’m a father and grandfather who loves taking his family to the races. We headed across to Hastings last week – Nicola, her partner Shane and grand-daughters Bailey and Neve – then the races got called off.
“I said to Nicola ‘We can’t end it like this, it’s too bad an experience for the little ones and another six hours on the road home, no way!’. So with it being the school holidays and the Arrowfield Plate rescheduled for Wednesday at Matamata, we headed up to Taupo and for the next three days we had a ball.
“Winning that Group One topped it off – that’s what you live for – and to have my grand-daughters there to take it all in, this will be something they’ll talk about for the rest of their lives!”
As well as his family, Bourke found no shortage of support from elsewhere – Arrowfield Stud representative Susan Archer appreciating just what it meant, and even the beaten brigade around Waikato Stud’s runner-up Skew Wiff acknowledging what it meant to the man from Taranaki.
“I thought it was great of Susan to mention that nine of the 14 runners in the Arrowfield were raced by their breeders, and for Garry (Chittick) to be so gracious after we had beaten their horse – we’ve known each other for a long time and it was very sporting of him.”
Waikato Stud’s homebred champion O’Reilly pops up repetitively in the pedigrees of each of last week’s main protagonists. The Hallof Famer is damsire of The Bold One, as well being the sire of One Bold Cat’s second dam Floozie and damsire of The Hottie.
“We bred The Hottie’s dam from a mare the Dennis brothers loaned us,” Burke recalled. “She was the very last foal sired by Noble Bijou, a mare called The Dame, and from her we bred The Hottie’s mother The Countessa.
“With O’Reilly also so close up in The Bold One, we decided to send her to Swiss Ace and from that we got The Hottie. You’ve got to admire her for what she’s done after she bled in her last start back in the autumn.
“Like everything else Robbie does – he’s such a good stockman and makes all the right calls –he has managed her so well and it was great to see her get that black type win in our backyard.”
Patterson resides at and manages Bourke’s farm 20 minutes east of New Plymouth which serves as an agistment facility and supplementary stable to the trainer’s main barn at New Plymouth racecourse.
“We’ve got plenty more back on the farm,” says Bourke, “brothers and sisters to all the good ones, more foals being born and mares going back to The Bold One and other stallions, so I tell you one thing, I’ll never run out (of horses).”
Bourke and company’s next stop is Saturday’s Gr. 1 Livamol Classic at Te Rapa with One Bold Cat, for which he is the clear favourite after his Arrowfield win.
“The last time he raced at Te Rapa he made up lengths on Legarto when he ran third in the Herbie Dyke, so without getting ahead of things, I reckon he’s got to be hard to beat this time.
“The Livamol has been his target all along, so yeah, I made sure I got some of the early odds. That should keep the wolf from the door if it comes off.”