Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Autumn thoroughbred feature racing at the Greerton racecourse stretches back six decades.

The sport attracts many of the best horses and jockeys in the country,

The Stars Travel Stakes and the Japan Bay of Plenty International Trophy in the 1960's and 1970's brought the best horses, jockeys and trainers to the Western Bay of Plenty track.

However the introduction of the first Bay of Plenty feature race came prior to the Stars Travel stakes, with the Easter Mile in 1961.

Today, the big prize at the Racing Tauranga autumn race days is the Group 2 Japan Trophy, which attracts the top 1600 metre horses in the country.

The Bay of Plenty Racing Club Easter Mile, before it morphed into the seven furlong Easter Trial the following year, was won by Waipari, who was a real warhorse of his time.

Waipari, ridden by Norm Holland, won the first Bay of Plenty Racing Club feature in1961, before going on to win the Auckland Racing Club Easter Handicap for the second time, a few weeks later.

In the Autumn of 1962, the Bay of Plenty Easter Handicap Trial was introduced, which was run at WFA (Weight for Age) over a distance of seven furlongs.

Cambridge jockey Gary Edge had a early mortgage on the race, kicking home Otematata, who followed Waipari in capturing the Auckland Racing Club big mile.

Arguably the best horse ever to be trained on the Greerton course, took out the 1963 running of the of the seven furlong test on his home track.

A rather unusual bay colouring with four white feet, Final Command was raced by Mr W.B. Mellow and trained at Tauranga by Paddy Abbott.

A win and three placing (from four starts as a two-year-old) saw Final Command start his three year season without too many high expectations.

An unplaced start and win at six furlongs at Rotorua was followed by another miss.

From there on he made punters sit up and take notice, stringing together six wins on the trot.

Gary Edge was in the saddle when Final Command resumed at the 1963 two day Bay of Plenty autumn meeting.

On the first day, he won the open sprint defeating a more than useful horse called Khadija by four lengths, before stepping up the seven furlong Easter Trial, which was the main race of the second day.

The three-year-old home town galloper burst into Easter Handicap calculations, when he decimated a smart field of weight for age gallopers by five lengths.

Final Command was sent out one of the shortest priced favorites in the history of the ARC Group 1 Easter Mile.

The Tauranga-trained galloper defeated an extremely strong Easter lineup, by a length and a half, from Poets Pride with Gauntlet the same distance away in third place.

Fencourt, who was prepared by Bill Hennessy at Te Aroha, grabbed plenty of media attention when he won back to back Easter Trials in 1964 and 1965.

While Norm Holland was on board in his first success, jockey Gary Edge took his winning tally to three in four years aboard Fencourt in 1965.

Chantal, who finished her career with a victory over Australian champion galloper Galilee in the ARC Epsom handicap in Sydney, won the 1966 edition of the Tauranga seven furlong race.

A genuine sprinter-miler in the Bill Sanders trained Kalgoorlie won the 1968 Tauranga feature, with Fair Law winning the following season.

Two very good three-year-old fillies in Astrella and Rich Return annexed the race in the Autumn of 1970 and 1971, with six year old sprinter in Count Kereru taking out the last running of the race over seven furlongs, the following year.

The reduction in distance to six furlongs in 1972, resulted in the demise of the Easter Trial.

While taken out by speed machine Nunui, the race had been overtaken in popularity by the Stars Travel and Japan Bay of Plenty features and was consigned to the Bay of Plenty Racing Club history books, after just 10 editions of the ARC Easter Handicap lead-up race.