Owner : Donald Whillans
Pedigree
Saddlers HallWinged Love
Early Rising
Nearly May
2008 bay mare
Erin's Isle
Lindajane
Tempo Rose
The family
This lovely filly is home bred and is the 3rd foal of Lindajane, who raced for
Donald in the early 2000s.
Lindajane also has Nodda High Kid (her first foal, bumper winner
later placed over hurdles) by Sir Harry Lewis, and
his sister Texas Tilly, both of whom were in training at Dodlands.
By the time Lindajane joined the yard in 1998, she had already shown
promise by being placed in a couple of bumpers for former Borders'
trainer Zoe Green. She was a marvellous racehorse for the yard
during her 6 seasons here. She won 3 races all told (2 hurdles, 1
chase) and was placed another 7 times for us.
Lindajane, who was best over 2 miles although did win over further, is one of 2 winners bred
by the 2nd dam Tempo Rose.
About the sire
Winged Love (bay horse born 1992, died 2015) was a Sheikh Mohammed owned
racehorse who was trained in France by Andre Fabre. He only won 3 of
his 9 races when campaigned at 2 and 3, but importantly he won the
Irish Derby beating Definite Article in a photo finish.
Retired to stud in 1996 where he stood in Germany until transferred
to Ireland in 2003. During this time in Germany he was the sire of
over 100 individual winners on the Flat, the best of his progeny
being the Group 2 winners Aolus and Macleya.
In Ireland, he stood as a dual purpose sire, with his best
off-spring making an impression in the jumps field. Top class Twist Magic his best known,
also perennial Cheltenham Festival performers Hunt Ball and Josses
Hill.
Nearly May is a well made mare, not overbig, who was bred by Donald
from his mare Lindajane. As such she has been in and around the
stables at Dodlands Steading since she was a foal.
We gave Nearly May plenty of time to grow into herself before
beginning the education process, supervised by Ryan Nichol with the help of
the other lads. So it was the autumn of 2012, that the mare joined
her stable companions on the gallops each morning, where she showed
us that she possessed a fair amount of ability. The initial exposure
to life as a racehorse complete, we gave her a few months off to
mature and brought her back into work in the early spring of 2013.
We
sent her up to Perth for an educational run in a bumper in July '13, where
although on the weak side, she ran a pleasing enough race to finish 6th.
The following season, we brought her into the yard in late autumn, and she made her seasonal
reappearance in a Newcastle bumper in January '14 in heavy ground.
But what a race she ran,
leading inside the final furlong but just being pipped into 2nd close home.
She ran a month later in a Kelso bumper as if something was amiss, so we gave her
an extended break.
Well, it's been a longish break indeed, but Nearly May is back in
training for the 2016-17 campaign, where we'll
look to give her a few runs over hurdles.
And, see how it goes.
| Season | win | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | other | |
| 2013-14 | NH Flat | 1 | 2 | |||
| 2016-17 | hurdles | |||||
