More than Abell

Tony Abell’s involvement in harness racing runs deep and wide.

Not only is he a successful breeder and racehorse owner, as an administrator he played a major role in setting up many feature races in both New Zealand and Australia.

He has travelled extensively to harness racing countries. He’s never been short of an idea, a number of which have been quite radical.

In the early years Tony and his wife Gay ran a successful chicken farm at Yaldhurst.

“It was the very early days of meat chickens and I could see the very big margins in it. I made more money out of chickens than anything else I’ve ever touched in my life. I was part of the judging panel at the World Poultry Science Congress and it was the only one ever held in New Zealand. I was highly flattered,” Tony said.

Many of his neighbours at Yaldhurst were harness racing trainers.

“Ollie Oakley was a few doors down the road and Reg Stockdale was across the road. I talked to them at various times about horses. I said to Gay at one stage that I’d like to buy a broodmare. Ian Lochead was one of the chicken people and we saw a lot of each other. He introduced me to his father Bill who raced horses. When the Sales at Addington came up, I got Bill to mark the catalogue and that’s how I bought Linda Frost.”

Linda Frost was an unraced Thurber Frost mare. Abell sent her to Scottish Hanover and the resulting foal was Te Kao. She was trained by Leicester Tatterson and was Tony and Gay’s first winner, at Kaikoura in November 1971.

The mare’s next foal and the first winner to carry the Kotare prefix, was Kotare Scott which won two of his eight starts and ran second to Willie Win in the 1972 New Zealand Derby.

“We sold him to America for $30,000 which was huge money in those days.”

The name Kotare came from Kotare Downs which was the Abell’s original farm at Sheffield.

“The place was named after the Kingfishers (Kotare) that used to sit on the powerlines.”

The Kotare name is synonymous with good horses and the first good horse was Kotare Legend.

He was by Fallacy out of the Australian bred mare Silver Halo, a half-sister to Don’t Retreat. Silver Halo was bought through George Aitkin from Paramatta Livestock.

“He was a big Australian seller and he came to me at Interdominion time and asked me if I’d be interested in buying Silver Halo. I told him I would. I thought she was in Australia, but it turned out that Derek Jones had her on his property. I bought her and that’s how I got to breed Kotare Legend.”

Kotare Legend trained by Tatterson, won two of his five starts as a two year old before he exploded onto the scene as a three year old, winning nine of his nineteen starts and being placed in six of his others.

“He was an awkward almost rough gaited horse with brilliant speed and a huge motor.”

A particular memory for Tony is Kotare Legend’s win in the Plains Handicap at Addington in April 1974.

“It was a C5 front and he was a three year old starting off a 10-metre handicap. He sat at the back and won, going away. Barry (Anderson) drove him all the way through. He suited the horse down to the ground.”

Kotare Legend won fourteen races in total with his biggest the 1974 Ashburton Flying Stakes. When he finished racing he stood at stud for a number of years, leaving the winners of fifty one races.

“He wasn’t a successful stallion because he wasn’t good enough gaited.”

Other good horses bred by the Abells include Kotare Knight, a Ballarat Cup and Inter Dominion heat winner, Kotare Topaz which won the Victorian Silver Chalice and Kotare Testament.

Kotare Testament was initially raced by the Abells and trainer Kevin James, before Mark Purdon bought him for stable clients Tim Vince, John Seaton and Neil Pilcher.

“Mark took him over there for the NSW Derby but he died the night before the race. They think he got a salmonella infection.”

Purdon, with training partner Grant Payne, also trained another good Kotare horse – Kotare Mach, for the Abells.

He won thirteen races for the partnership including the G1 Welcome Stakes and G2 Flying Stakes.

He was out of Extra BG whose pedigree goes back to Desilu, the dam of Delightful Lady.

“I was offered the chance to lease her.”

Abell is still breeding from the family with his two latest winners, Kotare Rata and Kotare Rimu, coming from the same family.

Tony held a trainer’s licence between 1979 and 2025 and trained nineteen winners. His first was Kotare Venture at Addington in November 1978. He was driven by Shirley Cummings and was her first winning drive.

Along with breeding and racing, Tony immersed himself in a number of leadership roles, all with significant impact.

He was one of the architects of the Sires’ Stakes Series – a series that originated in America.

“The original programme was started in Pennsylvania and it was hugely successful. It moved to Kentucky, then New York came in. New York State had a remarkable advantage because it was bordering on Canada. If horses wanted to compete in the New York Sires Stakes they had to be bred in New York State so the Canadian mares came down to be bred in New York State.”

Abell was keen to introduce a similar series into New Zealand so he flew to the States to talk to officials about the series framework.

“While I was there I went to the photocopier and tried to print out the American conditions of the Sires Stakes. The whole print off was a real flop so I sat down and wrote it out my hand and it took me three and a half days.”

Once Tony returned to New Zealand the concept was duly introduced, but not without its issues.

“We had the enormous war with National Bloodstock. They set up a competing series and tried to nominate their stallions for ours and we refused them. They were quite influential when it came to standing stallions. We got a letter from the lawyers saying they were going to sue us. Wayne Francis and I went to the Trotting Conference and they gave as a real drilling, saying we should let their horses in. We said no. The lawyer at the conference said we had ‘right’ on our side, but National Bloodstock were just too big for us. They weren’t too big for Wayne and they didn’t come in. Eventually their series folded. We had to ride it out and it was pretty tense.”

With John May, Abell wrote the initial conditions for a group racing structure in New Zealand which was later adopted by various Australian States. He proposed the re-formation of the Triple Crown Series, which was also adopted.

Abell says it was a period of very rapid change but that he was lucky to have some strong allies like Peter Binnie, Max Bowden and Wayne Francis on his side.

During that time he was also instrumental in setting up the DB Fillies Series.

“We set a proposal up to run a series. I presented it to the board and I got two very interesting comments. One was that there would never be any money in three year old fillies. We overcame those barriers and got it going. Some of the heats were weak but we were clearly heading into positive territory.”

At that time Abell had a good relationship with Warren Williams of Dominion Breweries.

“I wrote him a letter and set out a proposal asking DB for a substantial increase in money. I got my letter sent back to me and scrolled across the bottom. It said “Yes Tony let’s do it.” It’s never looked back and it’s still probably the strongest series we have.”

He was also heavily involved in the Interdominions series.

“I was one of the architects that got to redesign the new date structure. One of the things I found very hard to do was to vote against the Interdominion coming back to New Zealand. The money just wasn’t there. We just had to be realistic about it and we just didn’t have the resources. There’s talk now of New Zealand coming back in at some stage, I’d be pleased if we did.”

He was appointed the New Zealand delegate to the Inter Dominion Council in 1995, serving as its Treasurer, then vice-president, and he was president from 2000 to 2005.

During Abell’s involvement in the Inter Dominion Council, the clubs were given much greater programming flexibility and new ideas were encouraged. Abell was a key figure in negotiating a funding agreement to ensure that long-term stake money was maintained at the highest possible level.

He was also part of the Canterbury Standardbred Breeders Association and was instrumental in turning the body into a nationwide organisation in 1972.

“We got Auckland going. I went down to talk to Southland and we got a marvellous hearing down there.”

Abell has also been involved with the NZ Metropolitan Trotting Club. He served as a steward, was a committee man, became vice-president and sas president from 1994 to 1999.

He also contributed extensively to the Canterbury Owners and Trainers’ Association, of which he is their patron.

Over the years, many hours were spent formulating plans that he thought would enhance the sport.

“My biggest contention is getting the age group horses racing together. We’re not good at this. I believe we should be racing our two and three year olds in their age group, not in a handicapping system. I put up a paper with conditions for racing age group horses and it was turned down. I designed a system where horses that were too good for the age racing dropped off and had to race in the handicap system, so you had a pool of horses in the middle. At the other end if they weren’t good enough to start they also had to drop back into the handicapping system. I think condition races are very valuable and they do a great job with it in America.”

Over the seventy plus years Tony Abell had been involved in harness racing he’s received numerous awards.

He was awarded the MNZM for services to harness racing in the Queen’s Birthday honours of 2005.

“That was a great thrill.”

In 2020/2021 he was honoured by HRNZ and received the Outstanding Contribution to Harness Racing Award. He has also received the Ern Manea Inter Dominion Gold Medal for his service and contributions to the championships.

Tony was inducted into the NZ Metropolitan Trotting Club’s Hall of Fame in 2011 and from the Canterbury Owners and Trainers’ Association he received the Needham Heatley Merit Award for services to harness racing.

The couple now live on a lifestyle block in Rangiora and Tony at the age of 91, is reluctantly starting to wind back his on-farm activities around horses.

“When we came to this lifestyle property I very rashly made a promise to Gay that I would only breed one horse a year. I’ve come to regret it, but I had to keep my word. I still do my own artificial insemination and up until last year my own foaling. I struggled with it the year before last and I thought ‘I’m getting too old for this and might have to get someone else to do it.’ This year I sent my mare to Wai Eyre.”

Across all those very intensive years of involvement in harness racing Tony says he couldn’t have done what he did without his wife Gay.

“I never would have been able to do the things I did without her. I used to be away at Addington at least twice a week. I ‘d go to Australian regularly and we all went to the Interdominions every year. She was very tolerant and was able to keep things running while I did it.”

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink

This content was first released to The Insider subscribers and will only be available on the website until May 01 2026.
From then it will be exclusive to Insider subscribers. Don’t wait days for the edge on the latest news. Get our previews, selections, and insights early by joining our free newsletter The Insider.