Where Are They Now: Minty Mellow — Local Cup, Lifetime Family

For most people, the Geraldine Cup is a nice wee grass-track feature they might catch once a year on TV. For Jackie Nelson, it’s the race that sits at the heart of home. A third-generation farmer on the family place just out of Geraldine, Jackie has spent a lifetime straddling two worlds: the land and the Standardbred. The farm is now leased out, but the racing and breeding operation – and a paddock full of retirees – is very much alive.

Minty Mellow sits in rare company as one of only two mares in the past twenty years – along with Seaswift Joy – to win the Geraldine Cup, a feat that will remain unchanged this year with no mares contesting Saturday’s edition.

“The farm will be a third-generation Nelson farm. All the ancestors were in and around Geraldine. Dad loved the races and even as a child he used to bring me down to the races at Orari,” Jackie says.

It’s no surprise, then, that she’s been on the Orari committee for the best part of 15 years, at one point serving as vice-president, and is fiercely proud of what the club represents.

“It is very much a community event. We try to involve the community – the Golden Oldies, the Lions, groups like that – and lots of local sponsors. We’re hosting about 450 in marquees again this year… a lot of people are getting introduced to racing for the first time.”

What many locals might not realise, she says, is just how fragile that privilege is.

“I don’t think the local community realise how much under threat we are… because we’re only one code, I think we’re more at risk than we ever have been.”

It’s against that backdrop that a $50 boilover in the Cup takes on its true weight. For Jackie, Minty Mellow wasn’t just a mare. She was the homebred that turned a local committee woman into the custodian of her own Cup-day fairytale.

It All Started with Chocolate

Like most good broodmare tales, this one begins a couple of generations back, with Chocolate (Noodlum).

“Mum and Dad inherited her – she’d be Minty Mellow’s grandmother – and that was from Mum’s late brother,” Jackie recalls. “She was that Noodlum colour… that real chocolaty, dark chestnutty. She was beautiful and Dad absolutely adored her.”

Lightly tried, Chocolate still left an impression.

“I can remember her winning a race at Timaru by lengths – just lengths.”

From there, she left a family known for producing honest, durable stock. Step On The Gas (Save Fuel) won three and placed 16 times for Lindsay Kerslake and lived out his final years “on the retirement farm”. Half-brother Step Out (Camelon) won five and placed 15.

She’s Sweet (Camelon) produced Press Play (Shadow Play), a four-race winner who added “a good little cashflow” for Jackie under Joseph Gray. Through his dam’s Live Or Die daughter, Dulcet Diva, the family now has one precious next-generation filly.

“She’s the one and only I’ve got to breed from.”

Sweet Lady and the Making of Minty Mellow

Sweet Lady (Save Fuel) has been the best producer from the family, with the likes of Stepping Along (Knight Rainbow) – a good winner here before being sold to Australia – and others including Lady Lizzie (Lislea) and Crème De Coco (Badlands Hanover).

But her most memorable daughter will always be Minty Mellow.

“Really pretty horse… nice nature… lots of ability. But that whole family – none of them are young. They only really come good when they’re five and six.”

After two starts at three for Stephen McNally, she went south to Wayne Adams (“I always promised I’d send Wayne a horse”), then to Colin DeFilippi, before finally joining Kevin Chapman.

The Cup-day victory was never expected.

“We were just happy to line up and be part of the field. We never ever thought we’d win it.”

She stepped cleanly, landed the trail behind the favourite, and needed every ounce of luck with no passing lane at Orari.

“I can still remember it vividly… it was a bit of a one-off, really.”

Seven wins, seven placings, a 1:59.4 mile at Ashburton and more than $54,000 later, she remains one of Geraldine’s modern folk heroes.

“That would be the biggest highlight by far,” Jackie says. “Because it is the local Cup. That’s why I’m absolutely gutted I can’t get her back in foal.”

Heartbreak in the Broodmare Paddock

Heartbreak in the Broodmare Paddock

Minty Mellow’s stud career has been a study in frustration: twelve seasons, twelve attempts, and only three live foals.

A filly by Bettor’s Delight died young after breaking her leg. The next foal, What The Hell (Art Major), had severe conformation issues.

“He ended up in the Chatham Islands.”

That leaves two to fly the flag:

- Archie (Sportswriter) — 6 wins, 18 placings, $70k+, first emergency this Saturday
- Choco Lou (Sweet Lou) — a rare early runner, now returning after a serious liver issue

“I’ll give him one more go… he’s probably got the most ability of all of them.”

As for Minty Mellow:

“She’s retired… maybe one more crack at ET next year. She looks incredible. It would be so good to get one.”

Forty years after Chocolate first arrived on the Nelson farm, the family still stands behind its mares, its memories, and its community.

As the Geraldine Cup tapes fly again this Saturday – without a mare in the field to challenge Minty Mellow and Seaswift Joy’s two-decade hold on the title – the crowd will see a competitive race, strong fields, and the usual Orari hospitality.

What they won’t see is everything behind it:
a lifetime breeder, a home-track dreamer, and a tireless committee worker and community stalwart who helped make the day possible long before Minty Mellow shot through a gap and wrote herself into local folklore.