Day: 1 December 2023

Champion Victorian jockey Blake Shinn will be in action in New Zealand on Boxing Day at Pukekohe Park as well as at the lucrative Karaka Millions meeting at Ellerslie on January 27. Shinn, who was in New Zealand just over a week ago for the New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sales, has been engaged to ride star filly Molly Bloom in the Gr.2 Hallmark Stud Eight Carat Stakes (1600m) for trainers Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott on Boxing Day. Star Victorian jockey Blake Shinn will be in action in…

Shock ‘Em Ova’s (NZ) (Shocking) spring campaign is over after trainer Alex Rae scratched him from Saturday’s Gr.2 Zipping Classic at Caulfield. Rae made the decision to scratch after his stable star suffered from “some very mild inflammation in a fetlock”. “I have had to pull Shock ‘Em Ova out of the Classic on Saturday due to some very mild inflammation in a fetlock incurred galloping Tuesday morning,” Rae told racing.com “The horse is 98 percent but we just feel we need to be at our best to be racing…

Handicap conditions won’t be in the favour of middle-distance specialist Defibrillate when the classy gelding contests the Listed Steelform Roofing Group Wanganui Cup (2040m) on Saturday. The nine-year-old son of Shocking was a key figure in the top-flight middle-distance events last season and looked to be returning to solid form at Pukekohe last start when finishing fourth behind proven mares Aquacade and Aromatic. A winner of 12 races and more than $1 million in stakes, Defibrillate enters the Wanganui feature with a testing 59 kilograms with Johnathon Parkes aboard. “It’s…

Racing commentator Tony Lee is set to call his final Wellington Cup meeting following a long and iconic career behind the microphone stretching back to the 1980s. Dunedin-based race caller Justin Evans is preparing to move north where he will take over the reins from Mr Lee as Central Districts commentator in the New Year. Entain Managing Director – New Zealand, Cameron Rodger, said he wanted to acknowledge the enormous contribution Mr Lee had made to Trackside’s broadcast team over the years, which will conclude at the end of the…

Leading Otago trainers Brian and Shane Anderton are set to make their presence felt with two well-credentialled runners in Sunday’s $50,000 Happy Hire Cromwell Cup (2030m). Shane Anderton expects the step up to 2030m to be ideal for Capo Dell Impero (NZ) (Ghibellines) and Burgie (NZ) (Ghibellines), who are both coming out of the Gr.3 Coupland’s Bakeries Mile (1600m) during last month’s New Zealand Cup Carnival in Christchurch. Capo Dell Impero produced one of the eye-catching performances in that $250,000 feature, finishing strongly out of the back half of the…

Cambridge trainer Shaune Ritchie has crossed the Tasman for a second tilt at the Jericho Cup (4600m) at Warrnambool on Sunday, four years on from a highly creditable first attempt. Ritchie saddled Where Are You (NZ) (Ekraar) to finish third at double-figure odds in the 2019 running of the A$300,000 showpiece, which was established in 2018 to commemorate light horse involvement in World War I and is restricted to horses bred in Australia and New Zealand. Four of the first five winners of the race have been New Zealand-bred, but…

A busy Saturday afternoon is looming for Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh, who has 19 runners entered across the Te Rapa and Wanganui meetings including strong chances in all four black-type events. The first feature race of the afternoon is the Listed O’Learys Fillies’ Stakes (1340m) at Wanganui, which has been moved later in the season this year after previously being run on the same day as the Listed Wanganui Guineas (1340m) in early September. The move has proven to be popular, with Saturday’s $80,000 race for three-year-old fillies drawing a…

Kylie Hoskin is hoping she has the luck of the Irish at Te Rapa on Saturday, having secured expat Samantha Wynne to ride Zaila (NZ) (Per Incanto) in the Gr.3 Eagle Technology Stakes (1600m). With the jockey ranks thin on the ground at present, Hoskin was struggling to find a lightweight rider for Zaila’s 53kg impost, so took her search to the South Island to secure one. “We were struggling to get a jockey at that weight and Zaila’s owner came up with the idea of asking Sam Wynne, so…