SANTA ANA LANE
SANTA HONOURED IN SPRINT SERIES RENAME BY PATRICK BARTLEY
For decades now the Ramsden family have been a successful entity in horse racing in some of the state’s most important races. Five-time Group 1 winner Santa Ana Lane gave them many reasons to celebrate in an illustrious career. The late Andrew Ramsden, a former chairman of the VRC, gathered together a group of friends from the well-known city venue The Australian Club in the late 1970s to form what turned out to be a highly successful investment. All named after streets that surrounded the club, the horses that they purchased included Melbourne Cup winner Gurner’s Lane, and outstanding stayer Paris Lane. It seemed that the Ramsden family were content to race Melbourne Cup winners and Caulfield Cup winners. However, one horse emerged that debunked the staying theory. Ramsden’s sonMichael and current VRCvice-chairman, speaking from New York where he is on a business tour, explained that Santa Ana Lane proved to be a very different racehorse than all of the stayers that had carried the Ramsden colours in the past. “Normally we look for stayers, but have broadened it to good types. “He (Santa Ana Lane) was supposed to be a stayer and his breeding suggested around 2000 metres would be his ideal distance. “We tried him over a mile but I guess he didn’t read his breeding page,” Ramsden said. However, Santa Ana Lane did something right, and his career managed to collect $8,236,336 in prize winnings. Now Ramsden is very glad that he bought the Lope De Vega colt who is out of a good race mare First Fleet.
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