Knighthood for top NZ breeder Hogan. - Free Online Library

PATRICK Hogan, the most prominent breeder in New Zealand for the last quarter of a century, has been awarded a knighthood in the Queen's New Year's Honours List.

Master of Cambridge Stud, on the North Island, Hogan was honoured for services to the New Zealand breeding and racing industry, a citation which recognises his significant contributions and achievements, many of which derive from the success of his stallion Sir Tristram, imported out of training from France in 1975. Hogan had been appointed CBE in 1991.

Hogan bought Sir Tristram unseen against the advice of his British-based agent, who criticised the horse's conformation and was uncomplimentary about his racing record. But Hogan would not be deterred, and his purchase became the most important sire in the southern hemisphere.

Many times Australian champion, Sir Tristram set a world record with 44 individual Group 1 winners. The only son of Sir Ivor to attain a notable stud reputation, Sir Tristram, who died in 1997, put Cambridge Stud on the map.

His son Zabeel, now based at the stud, has been champion sire in Australia for the last two seasons and, on Boxing Day, a son and a daughter of his ran one-two in the New Zealand

Derby. He also had first and second in the 1998 Melbourne Cup and the winner of Monday's Auckland Cup.

Zabeel, bred by Robert Sangster's

Swettenham Stud and sold as a yearling to Hamdan Al Maktoum, was one of the best three-year-olds in Australia in the 1989/90 season, when his biggest win came in the Group 1 Australian Guineas.

Hogan's choice as the natural successor to his sire, Zabeel (who is out of the Nureyev mare Lady Giselle) soon made his mark at Cambridge and, in 1997/98, he became the first stallion since Sir Tristram to head both the Australian and New Zealand lists in the same season. Last year he achieved the distinction of that double a second time.

Long credited with having brought a new brand of professionalism to New Zealand breeding, Hogan has always acknowledged his debt to Sir Tristram. "His progeny made possible what I have been able to achieve, for myself and for the industry," said the new knight.

Sadly, celebrations over the honour have been tempered by the death on December 30 of the Cambridge Stud stallion Maroof. The nine-year-old son of Danzig collapsed from a ruptured blood vessel in his neck.

Imported to Cambridge in 1995, Maroof - shock winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in 1994 - suffered fertility problems at the outset of his career and became the subject of an insurance claim.

Bought back from the insurers and reinstalled at Cambridge, he had been becoming more fertile and has 28 yearlings entered in the forthcoming New Zealand sales.