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Progeny pay tribute to Honor Grades

It's a truism that when a stallion dies his progeny immediately lift their game and sharpen the loss felt by the stud that stands him. That's certainly true of Honor Grades (Danzig-Weekend Surprise by Secretariat) who died suddenly at Darby Dan Farm, Kentucky on 31 March. His southern hemisphere progeny, led by Group One winners Honor Bound and Honor Lap, improved his record considerably in the weeks following his demise. John Phillips, managing partner of Darby Dan, said "He was a kind horse,...

NZTBA website editor wins international award

Susan Archer, NZTBA website editor, has won the 2002 Most Valuable Online Person Award at the Wilburtins Southern Hemisphere Internet Awards, announced in Sydney last night. The awards, which recognise excellence achieved by thoroughbred industry websites and internet journalists, are organised by the leading US portal website LetItRide.com and its innovative chief executive, David Bernsen. Thoroughbred News, the very popular New Zealand-owned racing news site, won the Best Entrepreneurial S...

Great month for New Zealand-breds in Australia

Thirteen New Zealand-breds won sixteen Group & Listed Races in Australia during March 2002. Remarkably, seven of these have been Group One races, giving a total of 12 Australian Group One victories for the Kiwi team so far this season. Three Group 2 races came the Kiwi way in March, along with two Group 3 victories and four Listed Race wins. These figures are all the more impressive when it is remembered that less that 8% of all Australian starters are bred in New Zealand. The full list ...

Henderson Bay upsets in Chairman's Handicap

With eleven Kiwi-breds in the 19-strong field, the $A500,000 AJC Chairman's Handicap 2400m G2 gave New Zealand its best numerical chance of victory on Australia's richest raceday, at Randwick last Saturday. Hail was the favourite with punters on this side of the Tasman, but it was one of the lesser-fancied, Australian-trained Kiwis that prevailed. Henderson Bay (6g Guns of Navarone-Misty Lore by Rolle), paying almost $60 to win on the New Zealand TAB, defeated fellow Kiwi-bred Homewrecker and ...

Don Eduardo becomes Zabeel's 20th Group One winner

Don Eduardo (Zabeel-Diamond Lover by Sticks & Stones) met the pressure of his $3.6 million price-tag with a last-stride victory in the $A2 million San Miguel AJC Australian Derby 2400m G1 at Randwick yesterday. Fellow Kiwi-bred Carnegie Express (Carnegie) was a courageous second, almost taking the race after jockey Jim Cassidy sent him to the front 900 metres from home. This gave Don Eduardo what he needed - something to chase and a long straight to do it in - but he only made it by a head...

Honor Bound brings Group One glory to the Pascoes

If you want to meet some heartland New Zealand horse breeders, visit Club Med Lodge near Hamilton. That's the agistment property of breeders Terry and Vicki Pascoe, breeders and part-owners with their trainer Terry Wenn, of today's splendid ARC Jaguar Easter Handicap G1 winner Honor Bound (4m Honor Grades-Amrica by Amalgam). It was the mare's sixth win in 19 starts and took her earnings to around $250,000 - an amount still some way short of the money her owners have at various times turned d...

Magnificent Sunline wins her second Doncaster

Class might be defined as "the will to get out there and do it one more time." Sunline has been doing it one more time for so long now. Three Cox Plate starts, for two wins and a second; two Coolmore Classic victories; two starts in Hong Kong for a seventh and a stunning defeat of Fairy King Prawn; a win and a second in the Manikato Stakes; two runaway victories in the Waikato Sprint; two Memsie Stakes wins; two Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders' Stakes trophies and two Apollo Stakes. Not to ment...

Sixty Seconds gives her new owner a quick return

Sixty Seconds' narrow but impressive victory in last Saturday's $A400,000 STC Arrowfield Stud Stakes 2000m G1 gave her new owner, Englishman Gerald Leigh, a quick return on his investment. Mr Leigh, winner of the 1995 Duke of Devonshire Award and named TBA Flat Breeder of the Year in 2001, purchased the daughter of Centaine and Fifteen Reasons after her Fayette Park Championship S. G2 win at Ellerslie on 2 March. She had earlier run a fine third in the ARC Mercedes Derby G1 to Leica Guv and At...

Carnegie makes it big - and goes to Australia

New York's Carnegie Hall is renowned as one of the world's great performance venues. Strauss, Mahler, Menuhin, Gershwin, Bernstein, Callas, Garland and The Beatles are among the big names that have appeared there since its opening in 1891. Naming a colt after such a place runs the risk of derision if his performance on the track or at stud fails to live up to the aura of the name. The risk is considerably higher if he's a son of champion sire Sadler's Wells and Arc winner Detroit. But Carneg...

Kiwis fly in Japan, Australia & Dubai

As a bunch of gifted New Zealanders lined up in Hollywood to collect a total of five Oscars, Kiwi-bred horses provided the best possible supporting act in major races around the world. Caulfield & Melbourne Cups winner Ethereal (Rhythm), raced by her breeders Peter & Philip Vela, produced a whirlwind finish to take out The BMW 2400m G1 at Rosehill in Sydney. The performance confirmed her ranking as the best stayer in Australasia. Reports from Australia indicate that the Velas are now ke...

More success for Sound Reason as broodmare sire

Last Saturday's Arrowfield Stud Stakes winner Sixty Seconds (Centaine) is the second Group One winner this season from a Sound Reason mare. The other is New Zealand 1000 Guineas & Bayer Classic winner Final Destination and she too is by a Waikato Stud sire, O'Reilly. Another current season performer from a Sound Reason mare, Pledge (by Paramount Lodge's young sire Mellifont), added a third stakes race to her record with victory in the Ashburton RC New Zealand Bloodstock Leasing S. LR on Fr...

Centaine's outstanding record

Anyone putting a case for the tendency of a stallion's success rate to decline as he gets older had better not visit Waikato Stud. Centaine (Century-Rainbeam by Vain), now twenty-one, has been part of the Chittick family since he arrived at their Thornton Park Stud, Palmerston North, 16 years ago. His impact on New Zealand breeding and racing was swift and stunning. He was champion New Zealand sire of two-year-olds with his first crop in 1988-89. Eleven years later, in 1999-2000, he won the t...

Ken Browne looks forward to a new jumping season

The NZTBA has received many inquiries about legendary jumps owner, trainer and rider Ken Browne's progress after his incapacitating fall last May. Ken and his wife Ann have dominated New Zealand jumping for many years, earning widespread respect and admiration. Our membership secretary Sue Pirrit called the Brownes' Cambridge home today and was delighted to speak with Ken who is looking forward to another exciting winter with his team of jumpers. Ken and Ann have been members of the NZTBA for m...

Saint Cecile's classy Scottish connections

Nigel Auret, who owns, trains and bred Saint Cecile, winner of Saturday's New Zealand Bloodstock Breeders' S. G1, explained to the Waikato Times last month that all Saint Cecile's relations have names fit for a castle. "We have family links to Delgatie Castle in northern Scotland and that's how our mare Delgatie Queen got her name," Auret said. "All Delgatie Queen's foals have names linked to the castle. Her first foal, Rohaisha, was named after the castle ghost, and Saint Cecile shares a name ...

Saint Cecile wins her second NZ Bloodstock Breeders Stakes

Saint Cecile led all the way to win the Racing Te Aroha New Zealand Bloodstock Breeders' Stakes G2 last year. Today she won the race again in much the same fashion - with a few differences. Last year Lisa Mumby rode her; this year David Walsh was the pilot. Last year's race was worth $100,000; this year the stake was $120,000. And this year's field was arguably the strongest collection of fillies and mares assembled in New Zealand for some years. The reason for that wasn't hard to find: the r...

Why Section 15 of the Racing Bill must be changed

Finally it would appear concerns expressed regarding Section 15 of the Racing Bill are beginning to be heard and understood by a wide range of people involved in the Racing Industry. However, with the Bill being bumped up the Order Paper those expressions of concern may well be too little too late as the Bill could well have appeared for its second reading by the time this appears. Assuming there is still time for one last attempt to have government see reason it is probably worthwhile clarifyi...

Stellar field for Group One NZ Bloodstock Breeders' Stakes

The first running of the New Zealand Bloodstock Breeders' Stakes as a Group One event at Te Aroha this Saturday has drawn a field of outstanding quality. It's fair to say - so we'll say it! - that it has more depth than last weekend's Coolmore Classic, although Sunline's presence added a whole constellation of stars to that race's rating. Four Group One winners are among the eighteen acceptors at Te Aroha: Hello Dolly, Star Satire and the last two winners of the NZ 1000 Guineas, Elevenses and F...

First winner for Ashwell Farm's Shinko King

Original Sin's win at last Wednesday's South Waikato race meeting was the first New Zealand victory by Ashwell Farm stallion Shinko King. A half sister to last season's stakes winning two year old Shinnecock, Original Sin was bred by Hamilton couple Bill and Lorraine Sullivan. The filly came from last to beat Sun Wood (Woodborough) and Dane's Commitment (Danehill) by 2 ¼ lengths. Trainer Roger James will look at stepping Original Sin up to stakes company in the $25,000 New Zealand Bloodstock...

Of course, Old Comrade has a Kiwi connection...

Old Comrade (Old Spice-Belgravia by Ksar) scored a memorable triumph for Western Australia in Monday's VRC Australian Cup 2000m G1 at Flemington. In fact, the result was pretty much a whitewash for WA, with second placing going to last year's winner Northerly, also bred, owned & trained by Western Australians, and ridden by WA-born Damien Oliver. But go a couple of generations back into Old Comrade's pedigree and there she is: a fine old New Zealand-bred mare by the name of Cordonniere (...

Melbourne Cup heroine Empire Rose dies at Whakanui Stud

Yesterday Taimana carried the Bodle colours of yellow, black band and red striped sleeves to victory at Flemington for the first time since Empire Rose won the 1988 Melbourne Cup. Today Tim and Karen Bodle farewelled the mare who made those colours famous in the first place. As massive as her name implied, Empire Rose (Sir Tristram-Summer Fleur) was the undoubted star of the 1988 Melbourne Cup Carnival. She defeated weight-for-age stars Vo Rogue and Sky Chase in the MacKinnon Stakes on Derby Da...

Soldier Blue rewards owner-breeders' patience

New Zealand Cup winner Soldier Blue (7g Sir Sian-Va Bene) won the 2500-metre VRC Roy Higgins Quality at Flemington on his ear today for Waikato owner-breeders Alistaire & Isabel Barker and Cambridge trainer Royce Dowling. A very big, imposing individual who needs firm ground to show his best, Soldier Blue was always travelling well and, although taken wide on the home turn by jockey Brett Prebble, he forged clear impressively in the straight to win by a widening four lengths. The Barkers...

Star Belle Classic won by College Union

Owner-trainer Rex Allen faced a long drive back home to Taranaki after today's racing at Ellerslie, but the journey was surely made worthwhile by College Union's brave win in the $40,000 Genesis Star Belle Classic, a 2000-metre event for fillies and mares sponsored by Ancare and the NZTBA Auckland branch. Three-year-old filly Zirna (Deputy Governor) was a very close second, with another three-year-old The Cheek (Kaapstad) third. The race honours a champion New Zealand mare of the 1960s, Star B...

Sunline wins her second Coolmore Classic

She won her first Group One race in October 1998 and three-and-a-half years later she's still doing it. Today New Zealand's champion Sunline became the first mare to win two runnings of the STC Coolmore Classic 1500m G1 at Rosehill in Sydney with a courageous effort under 60 kg on a dead track. She had previously won the race, carrying the same weight, in 2000. Sunline jumped well from a less-than-ideal barrier one, but was steadied by Greg Childs behind early pacemaker Poppett, and then ease...

New Zealand builds strong hand for Australian classics

Carnegie Express, bred in New Zealand by Queenslander John Hawkins, gave Trelawney Stud's shuttle sire Carnegie his second Group One winner this season when he took out the STC Canterbury Guineas G1 on Saturday evening, beating Pentire's son Pentastic whose passage could have been smoother, according to jockey Brett Prebble. Carnegie is also the sire of VRC Derby G1 winner Amalfi, who has recently been side-lined with a tendon injury. Fourth-placed Leica Guv (Deputy Governor) should not be excl...

No Mean City triumphs over adversity

You won't have heard of him and, to be honest, the six-year-old son of Star Board and Jigtime (by Amazing Dancer) wasn't exactly famous here either before he won the Otaki-Maori RC Auto Auctions WFA 1400m G1 at Trentham on 21 February. A close look at his record of six wins and six placings from 15 starts indicates a very talented horse whose career has been limited by a sequence of injuries and unsoundness. His list of setbacks includes a broken pelvis & two bone chip operations which del...