Successful West Australian sire Carry A Smile has died aged 25 at Heytesbury Stud.  He had been pensioned in 2006 after covering 16 books for the Holmes a Court family at their Keysbrook nursery.

Heytesbury studmaster Nigel Reid said Carry A Smile had been in good health before suffering a stroke.

Carry A Smile (Haulpak – Silver Smile by Silver Knight) won 12 of his 17 starts including the 1989 G2 Winterbottom Stakes and G2 Lee-Steere Stakes.  His retired to stud in September 1990, the same month that Robert Holmes a Court died.

Carry A Smile was a Heytesbury homebred.  His sire Haulpak stood alongside Holmes a Court’s Melbourne Cup winner Silver Knight and dominated Sunspeed ranks for over a decade.

Haulpak sired 235 winners of 1071 races at an astounding 79% strike-rate.  Besides Carry Smile and his G1 winning sister Hold That Smile, he sired 33 stakes winners and they included the Eastern States G1 winners Starstruck, Chanteclair and Coal Pak.

Carry A Smile and Chanteclair were his only sons to make the grade at stud.  Carry A Smile has sired 174 winners of 536 races at a 61% strike-rate headed by 1996 G1 WATC Derby winner Capricious Lass.

Carry A Smile’s runners are beginning to thin out with just four of his stock still racing this season.  His latest winner is the Ray Malpass trained gelding Vodka Lime who scored at Mt Newman in August.

Sunspeed sensation Oratorio (Stravinsky) continues the family sireline at Mungrup Stud.  He is from a daughter of Carry A Smile’s sister Hold That Smile.