Maritana was a good racemare with untraceable roots, and she produced a son that was a successful runner. Her daughters, however, did not produce notable flat racing progeny, and the line is now extinct.
Maritana was bred in 1870 by Arthur Standish, an early settler at Taranaki, New Zealand. He had been born in Pontefract in Yorkshire's West Riding and arrived in New Zealand with his parents in 1843, when he was five years old. He became prominent in local politics, serving as mayor of New Plymouth and as Provincial Secretary and Crown Prosecutor for the Taranaki district. He was an amateur race horse rider in the sporadic horse races held at New Plymouth and other Taranaki venues from 1841 onwards -- he won races there with his mare, Nora, in one instance riding three 1-1/2 mile heats and a decider, a total of six miles, to take the race. He also won with Nora's daughter, and with Normanby, a winner and second place getter in the Wellington and Auckland Cups. Standish was a founding member of the Taranaki Jockey Club, established in 1864, serving as its president for many years, and as a steward for an even longer time.
Maritana was by the great early imported stallion Traducer, while he was maundering around the outposts servicing half-bred mares, prior to his return to Canterbury. Maritana's dam was Hypatia, by Nutwith (a son of Sir Hercules), out of Phyllis, a mare by the imported British stallion Gratis that was bred in New South Wales; nothing is now known of Phyllis' female antecedents. Gratis stood as a stallion at the famous Tocal Stud of Charles Reynolds, and also at the Busby brothers' Dalkeith stud at Cassilis, both in New South Wales, Australia. It is not recorded whether it was Phyllis or her daughter, Hypatia, that was brought to Taranaki.
Maritana was a very successful racemare of the 1870s, initially trained by Harry Goodman, who was a successful jockey for the famous Riccarton trainer William Webb, and later a trainer on his own account, successful with the great New Zealand Derby and Cup winner Euroclydon and with Sir Modred when he went to win in Australia. Maritana passed into the hands of jockey-owner-trainer Robert Reay, who had also ridden for and schooled with Webb. For him she won the 1878 CJC Handicap (later the New Zealand Cup) in 3:36 -1/4, a record over two miles in New Zealand. She also won the 18 furlong Timaru Cup, and the next year the Wellington Cup, placing second in the CJC Handicap to the good horse Chancellor, who she had beaten in the same race the previous year.
According to the NZSB Maritana bred six live foals -- Riccarton (1882), Martha (1885), Don Caesar (1886), a unnamed filly by Cadogan (1887), Martin (1888), and Patty (1889) -- all but one by Cadogan (1876, by Cremorne), imported into New Zealand by George Stead, the dominant owner of race horses in New Zealand in the late 19th century. Of these, the gelded Don Caesar won a good flat race, the 1889 Invercargill Cup. The breeder of Maritana's foals was Christchurch surgeon Dr. H.H. Prins, owner of Russley Stud, where the five-time leading sire Lochiel, stood at stud after he retired from the turf in the late '80s, prior to his purchase in 1890 by James Thompson; at Thompson's Oakleigh Stud in New South Wales (Australia) he became leading sire five times between 1897 and 1906.
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