Clive Brittain's well-travelled Needle Gun dies aged 29

Needle Gun, one of the many fine horses to have been campaigned so enterprisingly around the world by Clive Brittain, died on Monday morning aged 29.

A son of Sure Blade who was owned and bred by Saeed Manana out of his brilliant producer Lucayan Princess, he was a half-brother to fellow globe-trotters in the dual Coronation Cup and Grosser Preis von Baden winner Warrsan as well as Luso, who hit the mark at the highest level on many occasions in Germany and Italy.

Needle Gun went very close in a number of big events, running second in the Champagne Stakes at two, the Italian Derby and St James's Palace Stakes as a three-year-old, and then going very close in the the Hong Kong Vase and the Premio Presidente della Repubblica as an older horse.

He ran in Dubai, America and across Europe and although it took him until the age of four in a Yarmouth conditions event to lose his maiden tag, he went on to win twice at Group level at the Curragh.

Needle Gun stood first as a stallion at David Brace's Dunraven Stud in Wales before moving to Fiona Wilson's Lodge Farm near Peterborough.

"He always did the trying for us, came out this morning, tried a mare, was being a right idiot rearing up and goodness knows what, we put him back in and sadly five minutes later he had dropped dead," Wilson explained.

"He had got old, he did look an old horse, and we hadn’t stood him for a while, but he was a bit special. He’d always stand there with his tongue hanging out, and was very much a character."

Needle Gun was essentially considered a National Hunt stallion and produced little of much note, with the prolific Peter Bowen-trained chaser Yes Sir being his best son.

"He raced all over the world, Clive Brittain had the opinion that if he was second or third in expensive races abroad he'd get much more money than he would've done in England, which worked," said Wilson, who previously stood Young Ern and now has the Group-winning Steele Tango.

"With being 29, his children were getting fairly old, and he didn't have many runners on the Flat, but he's had some down in the West Country more recently through the likes of Sew On Target and Lady Longshot."

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