Month: November 2024

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Chad Ormsby has had a phenomenal 12 months with horses he has retained from New Zealand Bloodstock’s Ready to Run Sales, but this week at Karaka he is hoping to go home with an empty truck. Ormsby operates Riverrock Farm out of Cambridge, where he balances training, educating and preparing horses for the sales. In the training role, Ormsby prepared Pulchritudinous to win this year’s Gr.1 New Zealand Oaks (2400m) in March after she failed to meet her $50,000 reserve in 2022. He achieved a similar feat in the Gr.3…

The retirement of Hong Kong megastar Golden Sixty has done nothing to slow the momentum of NZB’s Ready to Run Sale, with buyers from across Australasia and Asia converging on Karaka for the two-day sale on Wednesday and Thursday. Billed as the best sale of its kind anywhere in the world, the Ready to Run Sale has produced a long list of big-race performers headed by the great Golden Sixty. Bought for $300,000 from Riversley Park’s draft in 2017, he went on to win 26 of his 31 starts including…

Riccarton Park has become a happy hunting ground for graduates of Cambridge thoroughbred nursery Pencarrow Stud, which was further enhanced last week through the deeds of Mehzebeen. The daughter of Almanzor kicked off New Zealand Cup week with victory in the Listed Metropolitan Trophy (2600m) before backing up seven days later to take out Saturday’s Gr.3 New Zealand Cup (3200m). “It was a real thrill to win a race like the New Zealand Cup, which is still one of the iconic races on the calendar,” Pencarrow Stud Manager Leon Casey…

Joe Pride is set to have a strong hand in the feature race at the stand-alone Kembla Grange meeting with up to three runners in the $1 million The Gong (1600m). The Warwick Farm horseman has nominated Little Dance (1600m) runner-up Estadio Mestalla (Galileo Gold), last start winner King Of The Castle (NZ) (Castledale) and proven stakes performer Lekvarte (NZ) (Reliable Man) for Saturday’s mile feature, which has attracted 33 entries. Lekvarte was a brilliant winner of the Gr.3 Angst Stakes (1600m) at Randwick two starts ago and was far from disgraced when sixth to Atishu (NZ) (Savabeel) in the Gr.1 Empire Rose Stakes (1600m)…

Yaldi’s quest for further stakes honours gained momentum at Monday’s trials at Te Awamutu where the talented three-year-old enjoyed a good hit-out. The Andrew Forsman-prepared son of Ardrossan sat three wide near the pace and wasn’t pressured in the run home to finish third against the older horses in his 850m heat. “It was good to get him back and going and he seems to have returned bigger and stronger,” the Cambridge trainer said. Yaldi has been set for the Auckland age group feature on Karaka Millions evening on January…