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Racing & Breeding News
Brian Russell Bloodstock Media Service
Phone (02) 6543 3051, Fax (02) 6541 1022

The greatest thrill the late Jack Sheppard enjoyed through Gloomy Isle, a filly he bred, owned and trained on a dirt track circulating a rise in a paddock adjacent the homestead on Gyarran, a property at the southern edge of Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley, was not her success in the Flight Stakes at Randwick but her win a month later in the Muswellbrook Cup.

This was in the spring of 1975 and memories of the deeds of this legend of Upper Hunter racing were recalled with her death at Gyarran on Saturday at the grand old age of 29 years. Sadly she has been predeceased by both Jack Sheppard, his son John and Bert Collins, her resident strapper.

Gloomy Isle ranks among the best racehorses of the past thirty years trained in the Upper Hunter, winning eleven races including six in Sydney and finishing second to Purple Patch in the Group Two Premiere Stakes at Rosehill.

Bred on Gyarran by Jack Sheppard, a great stalwart of the Muswellbrook race club and for a time its president, Gloomy Isle was got on the stud by resident sire Grey Portal and the only times she left the property was go to the races or later out for matings. At stud she produced a dozen foals including seven winners.

One of the winners, Zoomvliet, is the dam of Gyarran, a winner of six races to date and third in the $30,000 Bengalla Mining Community Cup, the feature event at the meeting held at Muswellbrook on Sunday. He is raced by a partnership of Jack Sheppard's widow Dorothy and their two daughters. Since Jack died 23 years ago Gloomy Isle has been in the care of Dorothy Sheppard and has roamed the Gyarran house paddock in recent years with inseparable mate Tiddles, a rising 26-year-old.

Racing & Breeding News
Brian Russell Bloodstock Media Service
Phone (02) 6543 3051, Fax (02) 6541 1022

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