Where Are They Now: With Intent — The Mare Who Continued a Family Legacy

If you look out the bedroom window of Margo and Pete Davis’s Canterbury property, you’ll see two mares standing side by side in the spring sunshine.

One is With Intent, now twenty years old. The other, her dam Total Perception, is nearing thirty. Together they represent not only remarkable longevity but a living link to one of New Zealand trotting’s most storied families — a lineage that spans more than six decades, three generations, and two of the sport’s most respected names: Doyle and Nyhan.

The view, Margo says, is a familiar one — and deeply personal.

“We actually moved into Mum and Dad’s farm after Mum passed away in December, so we’re looking out the same bedroom window at them that Mum and Dad used to. It’s pretty special.”

The With Intent story can’t be told without the generations before her. Her dam Total Perception (Gee Whiz II) was a talented trotter in her own right, and a daughter of the champion mare Look (Gekoj), a former NZSBA Broodmare of Excellence whose influence continues to ripple through New Zealand trotting pedigrees. That maternal line traces back even further to When (Light Brigade), trained by Margo’s grandfather Bill Doyle and famously the first Australasian trotter ever invited to contest the International Trot at Yonkers Raceway in 1963.

Denis Nyhan — then a young man early in his career — travelled to America with his in-laws for that historic trip and even drove at Yonkers during the visit. It was a formative moment for the family, setting in motion a passion for the squaregaiter that still defines them today.

By the time With Intent came along, Denis and Denise were an established force in New Zealand harness racing — Denis a household name for his brilliance both in the cart and behind the scenes. The mare they bred together would prove a reflection of that legacy: talented, tough, and sometimes a little too smart for her own good.

“She was quite precocious,” Margo recalls. “She raced at two and was pretty nice right from the get-go. She actually should have made the Jewels, but Dad missed the programming — they added a two-year-old trot at Timaru, and the winner of that bumped her out of it. He wasn’t very happy about that!”

Even without that early opportunity, With Intent quickly proved her class. As a three-year-old she finished second to Real Deal Yankee in the New Zealand Hambletonian, in what Margo remembers as one of the deepest age-group crops imaginable — Real Yankee, Ultimate Galleon, Sovereignty and others who would go on to become household names.

“She raced in a really tough era,” Margo says. “You look back and she was running seconds and thirds behind some incredible horses — she wasn’t quite up with the very best of them, but she wasn’t far off either. She was a tough old thing.”

As she matured, With Intent continued to mix it with the elite — racing alongside I Can Doosit, Stent and The Fiery Ginga, often placing behind them. She became the kind of mare every horseman respects: honest, durable, and reliable. For Denis Nyhan, nearing the twilight of an extraordinary career that spanned from Lordship and Robalan through to Look and beyond, With Intent represented both continuity and companionship.

“It was pretty cool for him, yeah,” Margo says. “She was a super horse for him to have near the end of his career.”

But she wasn’t always easy.

“She could be a bit of a nasty old thing,” Margo admits with a grin. “Mike McCann used to tell Dad to stay away from her. He’d just swab her and leave it at that — she wasn’t the nicest to be around. It’s So Easy’s taken after her a bit — she’s exactly the same!”

When Denis passed, Margo and her mother continued the breeding programme themselves, producing every one of With Intent’s foals. Denis died in September, just before Fernando was born. They tried again after his passing but couldn’t get her in foal.

“We served her a couple of times with high hopes, but she didn’t always get in foal,” Margo explains. “Mum and Dad only ever bred her every second year because they didn’t really want to foal every season. Gael Murray said later that older mares actually do better being bred every year — so that’s probably why she became a bit shy later on.”

Her first successful mating produced It’s So Easy (Majestic Son), a trotting mare who mirrors her dam’s tenacity and temperament. Trained by Margo and regularly driven by Pete Davis, she’s won nine races and 16 placings to date — earning over six figures in stakes. Her next foal, Knowing Me, a full sister, has also made the grade, with four wins so far and more to come.

“She’s coming back up nicely,” Margo says. “We could have trialled her last week but had three others on the truck, so she’ll go next week.”

The next in line is Fernando, another full sibling, now three. His progress has Margo quietly optimistic.

“Pete said he was the ruliest, most useless horse he’s ever sat behind — definitely not the nicest — but he’s come good now. He does look like he’ll make the grade and he’s only three or four weeks from trialling.”

It’s a story that stretches back through the decades — from Bill Doyle’s When travelling to Yonkers in the 1960s, to Look’s daughters continuing her line through three generations of breeders. All of Look’s foals were bred year-about by Denise Nyhan, Helen Pope and Lynn Smith — the three sisters and daughters of Bill Doyle. Bill passed in 1988, and Look produced her first foal five years later in 1993.

“They probably never bothered with leases or anything,” Margo says. “It was just family — they all took turns.”

Now, decades later, the mare grazing outside Margo’s window stands as both a reminder and a living bridge.

“When you’re younger, you don’t think too much about it,” she reflects. “But when you get older, you go — holy shit, this is kind of special.”

It’s that sense of quiet pride — of stewardship rather than ownership — that makes the With Intent story so resonant. In her, and in her foals, the spirit of three generations of horsepeople continues to move forward — with intent, indeed.