Cover image courtesy of the Australian Turf Club
It’s hard to believe that the 1940s in Sydney was able to produce such continued brilliance as had the 1930s. But it did, and Australian racing’s World War II era was gifted such names as Bernborough, Shannon and Flight (Royal Step).
Count among them the long, elegant, chestnut mare Tea Rose, who raced from her juvenile season of 1944 through to the autumn of 1946.
It was a brief career, but enough of one to plant her name in the history books. Tea Rose won the Rosehill Guineas, Craven Plate and Canterbury S., all in 1944 and all in advance of the victory that was her making – the AJC Derby.
At that time, Sydney’s Derby was run in the spring, and it hadn’t been won by a filly since Picture (Russley {NZ}) in 1898. Such a statistic made no difference to Tea Rose though, and she clattered over the top of a field that included the very sharp Shannon and Murray Stream to win by 2l at odds of 9/4.
It was a famous victory that promised great things from Tea Rose, but that’s the thing about racehorses. They can promise all they want but they won’t always deliver.
Tea Rose raced a handful of times after her Derby victory, but she didn’t win again. Did the Derby ruin her? Her trainer, Queenslander George Anderson, was never sure.
Who was I: Tea Rose's trainer, George Anderson (pictured right), at the races in September 1944 | Image courtesy of the State Library of New South Wales
Rumours swirled that the filly was broken-winded, and that she returned as a bleeder in her 4-year-old season. Either way, it proved impossible for her to reproduce her brilliance and she was retired reluctantly in May 1946.
Tea Rose had been bred in Queensland in 1941 by Ernest White. Her sire, Mr Standfast (GB), was a very good import, while her dam, Tea Table (Rivoli), also foaled the Toowoomba stakes winner Lucky Ted. George Anderson had trained Tea Table, and he had trained her dam, Tea For Two (Highfield {GB}), so that by the time he got hold of Tea Rose, he had handled three generations of the family page.
Anderson knew the fillies in this family. They didn’t need heavy work and he trained them all the same, on light preparations with racing to fit them for the bigger targets. When Tea Rose was born, racing had ground to a halt in Brisbane, so Anderson migrated to Sydney and brought the filly with him.
Ernest Edward Duckett White (EED White), Tea Rose's breeder, pictured as a service recruit, 1917-1918 | Image courtesy of the State Library of Queensland
He raced Tea Rose on lease from her breeder with the former Kiwi, Walter Devon. Tea Rose carried the same colours as the Adrian Knox-Wakeful S. winner of the late 1930s, the filly Early Bird (The Buzzard {GB}).
On retirement, Tea Rose returned to Queensland with Anderson, but ultimately she ended up at Edward A. Underwood’s Warlaby Stud in Victoria. Here, she visited the resident stallion Dhoti (GB) and shared paddocks with Flight, the Melbourne Cup winner Rainbird (The Buzzard {GB}) and Tranquil Star (Gay Lothario {GB}).
However, Tea Rose never managed to see a pregnancy through and it was a crying shame that this leggy, lovely racehorse died while foaling in 1954, with not a single offspring to her name.
The State Heritage-significant stables that remain at the old Warlaby Stud, Oaklands Junction
In Sydney, the Tea Rose S. has been ongoing since 1980, when it was won by the Golden Slipper winner Dark Eclipse (Baguette). It’s become a 3-year-old fillies’ fixture, which is fitting given its namesake was one of the smartest 3-year-old fillies of her era.
