KEY POINTS:
If you're old enough, can you remember what you were doing mid-afternoon on Boxing Day 1944?
Wig Wilson can.
He was in the cab of a truck at the Pirongia picnic race meeting listening to the Auckland Cup on the radio.
It was a big moment - his
father Leo won that day with Foxwyn.
And now 63 years later Mr Wilson wants to win today's $700,000 SkyCity Auckland Cup with the first horse he's attempted it with, Kingsinga.
"Yes, it would mean a lot," said Mr Wilson, recalling that wartime Boxing Day. "I'd just ridden the winner of the pony scurry and we rushed over to this bloke's truck to hear Gordon Hutter call the Auckland Cup.
"It was a big thing for a car or a truck to have a radio in those days."
There are several reasons Kingsinga would be an appropriate winner today.
The first is it would give Mr Wilson back the Auckland Cup he lost.
He donated the trophy Foxwyn won for his father to the NZ Racing Museum, but it was stolen in the 1980s.
"There was a big rush on gold at the time and someone clearly wanted it."
And then there's the name Wig.
Wilson was christened Noel, but soldiers stationed on the family property at Taupiri changed all that.
The soldiers watched young Noel riding his pony and nicknamed him Wiggins after the leading jockey of the time Larry Wiggins.
"For a while I was called Wiggins, then it got shortened to Wig."
Larry Wiggins won the Cup three times and Mr Wilson would like to honour that record with victory today.
Remarkably, although Mr Wilson has owned dozens of horses, Kingsinga is the first to be nominated for an Auckland Cup.
"I've had plenty that were good enough, but perhaps they'd come to form at the wrong time, or something went amiss with them, but I've never had even one nominated."
An omen?
Kingsinga is the $4.20 second favourite behind last year's winner Pentane.
The only possible question mark is that he is untried at over 3200m.
He scored a dominating win in the $70,000 Marton Cup on January 13 and subsequently impressed when placed at unsuitable weight-for-age conditions.
He is nicely weighted at 54.5kg and has talented jockey Leith Innes aboard.
If Kingsinga is beaten Mr Wilson won't have a long face.
"My father always taught me to breed horses to race for yourself and to have no aspirations. We were taught to lose well ... That way you last in the game a lot longer."
Oh, and there is one final reason Kingsinga would be the ideal winner.
The last time the Wilson colours were carried in the Cup, Foxwyn was beaten a nose by Sylis in 1946.
Sixty-one years is a long time to wait for revenge.
