La Mer who won hearts Submit A Story Idea

By John Costello

Funny how the mind works, isn't it? I was thinking the other day about the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and how near-impossible the Kiwi-bred So You Think's task was from where he was positioned starting the run home.
And that got me thinking about another Kiwi, named Balmerino, who tackled the Arc over 30 years ago and finished second to a high-class three-year-old named Alleged.
This in turn got me thinking about Balmerino's New Zealand career, and what a great bunch of horses were around in the 1970s. From there it was only a short hop-skip to thinking about La Mer, a lovely, classy little chestnut mare who was another of the stars in that shining '70s firmament.
And I gave Des Harris a ring.
Des lives these days in Matamata and has had a marketing business for 15 years or more. His son Jason works out of Auckland for the company (DJL Marketing) and daughter Lisa runs the Palmerston North branch of the operation. Before that Des had a courier business in Palmerston North for about seven years.
But back in the 1970s, when La Mer was winning herself a fan club, Des was a jockey, based at Woodville and lucky enough to win the regular mount on the chestnut filly from the time her trainer, the late Malcolm Smith, first took her to the tracks.
Des was one of six jockey siblings. The Harris brothers, whose father Jock was a renowned “heavyweight jockey” of his generation – a skilful jumps jockey but also sought after on the flat when horses got up in the weights – were John, Des, Noel and Peter. Their sisters Karen and Jenny also rode, though relatively briefly. John and Peter's careers in the saddle were curtailed by weight, John in particular a talented rider before increasing weight forced him from the saddle.
Noel, of course, is still riding; a marvel of whipcord durability and superb balance.
What a talented bunch of kids those boys were! Johnny was top New Zealand apprentice three years in a row; the year he came out of his time Des won the title. And two years later Noel was leading apprentice!
Weight was never a problem for Des. He was still riding 53kg when he decided to hang up his boots. It was nothing dramatic that caused his decision to try new fields, after so relatively brief (about 14 years) a riding career.
“I was going through a lull, not getting many decent rides. I felt I'd been up there with the best, ridden some of the best; now I just wasn't getting the motivation, the enjoyment, to stay with my riding career.
“I'd ridden some crackerjack three-year-olds - Tang and Peg's Pride, Black Rod, Fury's Order (on whom Des won the first NZ Two Thousand Guineas and the first Ellerslie NZ Derby, after the rationalisation of the classics in 1973). “And then there was La Mer, my all-time favourite.”
La Mer, a smallish but compact and strong chestnut by Copenhagen II from the imported mare La Balsa, had 43 starts over four seasons and Des rode her in every start but one.
“An apprentice named Peter Graham rode her in one of her fresh-up races, to get weight off. Otherwise I rode her in every start, and in every one of her 24 wins. If it hadn't been for that one race the kid rode her, I reckon it would be some sort of record.”
It was some sort of record anyway. Any horse with wins in double figures is better than average. La Mer won 23 in New Zealand and another (the Toorak Handicap) in Australia, where she was also an unluckily second (to top-line Aussie Family of Man) in the L.K.S. MacKinnon Stakes.
Despite her imported parents, La Mer was a Taranaki girl through and through. She was bred at Cranleigh Stud by Jack Alexander and raced for the Estate of Alan Alexander. Throughout her career she was trained at New Plymouth by Malcolm Smith, mentor of today's successful trainer Lisa Latta.
The chief beneficiary of the Alexander Estate was New Plymouth High School. So we had the rather novel situation of a horse (and a very good horse) racing for a secondary college, and the chairman of the school's trustees, a gentleman named Stan Florence, had perforce to become a racing man. The school benefited again when, retired with earnings of $243,000, La Mer was purchased by Irish breeder Captain Tim Rogers for $300,000. Those were huge sums back in the late 1970s.
Des Harris, who was then the stable rider for Malcolm Smith, first met La Mer at a two-year-old trial at Waverley and it wasn't an auspicious introduction. The filly pig-rooted out of the stalls and, once she settled down, ran on OK for about third.
It was a different story when she made her raceday debut, at Woodville. She won by a length and a half and her next start, at New Plymouth, by seven lengths. Just as impressive, given the rise in class, was her final two-year-old start. She won the Manawatu Sires' Produce by four lengths.
La Mer won seven of her 11 starts as a three-year-old, including the Gold Trail, Desert Gold, Eulogy and Royal Stakes. Her great class then carried her to a decisive win in the New Zealand Oaks, though the 2400m distance was undoubtedly beyond her optimum. She was a clear-cut winner of the then Wrightson Filly of the Year Award.
That award in the bag, La Mer raced on into the autumn. She twice ran into the year-older Balmerino before that champion's departure on his world odyssey, and twice finished behind him. But she achieved a stunning 10-lengths win in the Great Northern Oaks before her season ended.
La Mer raced on at four and five, while Balmerino was making headlines in Europe, to record another 13 wins in New Zealand at weight-for-age. Her last win, at her final racetrack appearance to a tumultuous reception, was at Hastings in the Ormond Memorial Gold Cup, a race she'd won the year before.
Captain Rogers had bought her before the race and took her to his Airlie Stud in Ireland, with the promise that she would return to New Zealand with a foal at foot and in foal to a top Irish stallion. Sadly Captain Rogers died “before his time,” as they used to say, and La Mer was never seen in New Zealand again.
At stud in Ireland she enjoyed modest success, with seven winning progeny including one at Listed level.
And on the latest Arc de Triomphe day at Longchamp, when So You Think was bringing back memories of Balmerino's gallant bid at the European championship, La Mer's great-granddaughter Nahrain scored at Group 1 level in the Prix de l'Opera, the race following the Arc. A nice conclusion, don't you think, to the story of those two champions of the '70s?