Fleet Pocket's remarkable breeding record

By Dave Di Somma, Harness News Desk  
 
Prominent Otago breeder Lex Williams has praised his "incredible" broodmare Fleet's Pocket following her recent death, aged 26.
 
"She was the first horse I ever bought," says Williams, "she was a lovely old mare and very well-natured. What she did was remarkable."
 
She produced 19 foals from 2004 - 2022.
 
"Fifteen of them were winners and overall her progeny have won 142 races and $1.9m in stakes," says Williams, "it's an incredible achievement."
 
But age eventually caught up with her.
 
"She'd been struggling all winter and I'd been trying to feed her up but it wasn't to be," says Williams.
 
Fleet's Pocket was purchased out of the 2002 National Yearling Sales.
 
She was out of Fleet Vance, a two-race winning daughter of Vance Hanover, and by In The Pocket, the boom sire of Christian Cullen, Courage Under Fire and countless others.
 
On the race track she was retired following four unplaced starts as a 2YO and 3YO.
 
Her first foal, Mighty Pocketlands, who won four races in Australia, was just the forerunner for what was to come. Many of the fillies had the "Flying" prefix while Williams added "Mighty" to many of the colts' names.
 
Overall she was served by 11 different sires.
 
"She crossed with most stallions, especially Art Major."
 

Of them Williams particularly rates Mighty Flying Art (pictured above) and Mighty Flying Mac .
 
Mighty Flying Art produced the most wins (27 from 154 starts from here and in Australia) while Mighty Flying Mac had 14 wins in New Zealand  including the 2015 Hannon Memorial beating Christen Me in what was a Cran Dalgety-trained quinella. He was good enough to make the 2015 and 2016 New Zealand Trotting Cup, finishing 12th on both occasions.

Other good performers included Mighty Flying Major (14 NZ wins), Flying Pocketlands, who had 7 wins in NZ and 21 overall, Mighty Flying Thomas (6 NZ and 18 Australian wins), Mighty Flying Deal (5 NZ wins and 21 overall) and Mighty Flying Major (10 NZ wins),
 
And now the next generation is carrying on from Fleet's Pocket. For example, Flying Mrs Williams (2 wins) has had 13 foals including now seven-race winner Demon Blue.
 
This weekend will see Fleet's Pocket's two youngest progeny hit the racetrack. Mighty Flying Miki (1 win) will line up in Race 1 at Addington on Friday, with Mighty Flying Lou in Race 6 at Ashburton on Sunday.