Smoken Ace is Derby material
By Peter Wharton
Hamilton breeder-owner Stan Dunlop knows he will never again breed a pacer in the same league as the mighty Smoken Up.
The Tinted Cloud gelding totted up 74 wins including an amazing 15 Group 1’s and $3.6 million in stakes and was the first 1:50 pacer outside North America.
However, the retired engineer, shearer and milk tanker driver has high hopes for a star three-year-old named Smoken Ace, who has taken all before him since being exported to Victoria in May last year.
Smoken Ace winning at Melton
Photography: Stuart McCormick
The Sportswriter colt has won seven of his 15 starts to date and banked $64,485 and is regarded as Victoria Derby material of the highest order.
Trained by former Cambridge horseman Kyle Marshall, now firmly entrenched at Cranbourne, south of Melbourne, Smoken Ace disposed of older rivals at Melton and Cranbourne in the space of six days recently.
“He’s not a Smoken Up but he’s quite a handy little horse,” Stan said.
Dunlop races the colt with good friend Grant Stone and a family member Dennis Monk.
“I’ve been breeding from this family for more than 40 years,” Stan said. “I got into it when I shifted to Morrinsville and became friends with a chap who was training a couple of horses there.
“He suggested I breed one from a family that he liked and it just went on from there!”
The mare that Dunlop purchased was the unraced Denmark, a daughter of the six-win U Scott mare Dinnaken.
“At one stage I was breeding from three full sisters by Mark Lobell out of Dinnaken and a half-sister by Emory Hanover,” Dunlop said.
“Smoken Ace is from a different branch of the family to Smoken Up.”
Smoken Ace traces back to Dynamic, who was a sister to Denmark, the grand-dam of Smoken Up.
Dynamic produced seven individual winners – four in 2:00 – including Dynamic Lady (1:58.8), who, in turn, left one winner and the unraced Rose Mathias (by Il Vicolo), the dam of only two foals, one of which is Smoken Su (by Elsu).
“Smoken Su could run a bit herself. She would train the track down but got over excited on race day. We only gave her two starts,” Stan said.
Smoken Su has left four foals of racing age for four winners, all inside 2:00.
Her first foal Magilligan Point (1:56) won four races including the 2020 Rotorua Cup. Next, to the cover of Changeover, she left Smoken Shazza (1:56.9), a winner of six including one at Melton, followed by Whooshka 1:56.5 (by Sportswriter), who has won six races so far.
Smoken Ace is her fourth foal.
Smoken Su weanling filly by Bettor’s Delight
“We have a very nice two-year-old half-sister by Captain Crunch to Smoken Ace. She’s in work with Kyle Marshall,” Stan stated.
“She’s a big filly who has got plenty of ability.”
Smoken Su’s latest issue is a weanling filly by Bettor’s Delight named Smoken Delight.
“On breeding she should be the best of the lot of them,” Stan said.
“The mare is back in foal to Captain Crunch and has been booked to American Ideal this season.”
The other branch of the Dinnaken tribe through Elliken was responsible for Dynamic Lass, a winner of four races in NZ and who later took a mile record of 1:53.2 in North America.