Phone home - ET trotter Whats Up The Hill blasts off with narrow Escape at Auckland

Even though Lincoln Farms’ boss John Street hadn’t raced a trotter for nearly nine years, it didn’t take too much convincing for him to take a share in Whats Up The Hill.

And the deal he struck with leading owner Trevor Casey paid off for Street and his wife Lynne when the rookie three-year-old scraped home for his first win at Auckland on Saturday night.

Street previously enjoyed success at the highest level with Galleons Sunset, winner of the 2008 Interdominion Trotting Grand Final at Moonee Valley, but the frustrations of developing trotters never really left him.

That is, until Casey offered him a chance to race one of the progeny of his superstar race mare Escapee, along with his partner Kate Marriott.

In return, Street took Casey in on a cracking Downbytheseaside colt out of Tigers Lady which he bought at New Zealand Bloodstock’s 2023 weanling sale for $42,500.

Sadly, Tiger Lincoln didn’t make it. When it was discovered he needed tie-forward surgery, he was retired, not having shown enough to warrant the expense of the operation which had a low success rate.

Their trotter, Whats Up the Hill, didn’t do much to inspire Street initially, switching into a pace in each of his first three starts.

But, after gaining confidence with two placings at Palmerston North, Whats Up The Hill returned to Alexandra Park and, in a faultless display for driver Tony Herlihy, nosed out the favourite Hillbilly and Happy Hill completing a Woodlands Stud-sired trifecta for What The Hill.

For Casey, it helped justify the expense he went to in getting another foal out of Escapee after she ruptured a prepubic tendon late in her previous pregnancy, carrying a very large foal.

That foal, later named Isolate, was looking anything for trainer Phil Williamson when she mysteriously died in late 2023.

Leading breeders Trevor Casey and Kate Marriott.With Escapee left unable to carry any more foals safely, Casey undertook an expensive embryo transfer, taking an embryo out of her and using a surrogate mare to carry it to term.

Casey and Marriott chose to breed to What The Hill because the chance of the procedure being successful was increased with fresh semen.

A subsequent attempt by Nevele R Stud to get Escapee in foal failed but Casey said, after another ET procedure, a surrogate is carrying her foal by Sebastian K, but is owned by the stallion’s partners.

“I may put her in foal again but it’s so dear - you can spend 10k with no promise of a result.

“I’m already breeding from two of her daughters - Exit and La Reina Del Sur.”

Exit, a Muscle Hill mare, was bred during the two years when Escapee was sidelined with a suspensory ligament injury.

And while Escapee did make a comeback in September, 2015, she failed to fire in five starts and was retired.

It marked the end to one of the most spectacular careers by a young trotter in recent decades, her 39 starts - 16 at Group level - yeilding 11 wins and 10 placings.

From her third start, when she set a New Zealand record in winning a two-year-old race at Forbury Park by 17 lengths, Escapee was a headliner.

The winner of seven races on end, Escapee won the 2012 NZ Trotting Oaks, New Zealand Trotting Derby and Northern Trotting Derby, along with two feature races in Victoria, the Group II Maori Mile at Bendigo and Group III Melton Trotters’ Cup.

Escapee was the top female trotter at two, three and four years old, blotting her record only through a number of mistakes.

“She had too much speed for herself and got pulling really hard,” Marriott said.

And, just like Whats Up the Hill and other members of the family, Escapee was known to switch into a pace, a legacy of her dam Una Bromac being by the pacing sire Live Or Die.

Despite that, Escapee was one of the best trotters Casey has bred and raced - albeit behind millionaire Stent.

And the 2019-2020 breeder of the year is hoping Whats Up The Hill will develop into another good performer in his Lone Star colours under the guidance of Lincoln Farms trainers Ray Green and Nathan Delany.

“He has a big stride on him but he needs to fill into his frame.

“He’s not good enough for the derbies at the moment but he will be a nice horse and time is on his side.”