Year: 2024

Daniel Stackhouse is banking on It’s A Wild Night(NZ) (Vanbrugh) providing him a maiden win in the Ballarat Cup.  Daniel Stackhouse will look to parlay his recent good run of form into success in the Ballarat Cup.  Stackhouse picks up the ride aboard It’s A Wild Night in the $500,000 Listed contest over 2000m on Saturday, taking over from Blake Shinn who is Hong Kong bound for Sunday’s international meeting at Sha Tin.  It’s A Wild Night was the unlucky runner at his most recent appearance when fifth behind Globe in the Listed Cranbourne Cup (1600m) on November…

Lisa Allpress couldn’t have wished for a better return to the saddle at New Plymouth on Thursday, guiding home two winners from as many rides. Allpress suffered an fractured vertebra in a fall after the line at the Riccarton Synthetic meeting in early August, halting a fantastic start to the season, where she had guided five winners from just 13 rides. The four-time premiership winner was subsequently unable to fulfil an invitation to the World’s Jockey Series in Japan. Four months later, Allpress was back at the races and partnered…

Impressive debutant Cheaha was the latest of Wexford Stables’ three-year-olds to step into the winner’s circle, and on Saturday at Ellerslie, five of his stablemates will take their place in the Gr.3 Bonecrusher Stakes (1400m). Cheaha, a son of Alabama Express, made five trial appearances prior to the Rotorua meeting on Wednesday, showing enough promise to close a strong favourite for the maiden contest. Settling back early for jockey Warren Kennedy, Cheaha cruised along while the long-striding Sky Do raced boldly up-front. Cheaha had most of the field still ahead…

Robbie Patterson is confident One Bold Cat(NZ) (The Bold One) can be a major player this weekend in his pursuit for another top-flight title. The New Plymouth trainer has the six-year-old purring ahead of Saturday’s Gr.1 TAB Mufhasa Classic (1600m) at Trentham and clearly rates him as his top seed in the weight-for-age feature. Stablemate Puntura(NZ) (Vespa) will also take his place, but time is ticking on the son on the seven-year-old’s career after he struggled for form in the spring. By contrast, One Bold Cat powered home from the…

A crack at a major summer sprinting prize against the older horses hasn’t been ruled out for quality three-year-old Poetic Champion(NZ) (Super Seth). The stakes winning son of Super Seth is back in work and making good progress following a brief spring campaign that convinced trainer Tony Pike that, in the shorter term at least, he would be best kept to shorter assignments. Poetic Champion was an emphatic first-up winner of the Listed El Roca – Sir Colin Meads Trophy (1200m) at Hastings before he finished fourth in the Gr.2…

Three and a half years after taking a $1000 punt on a pedigree they liked on gavelhouse.com, Ian and Shelley Wright landed their richest prize in racing when Farag (NZ) (Sacred Falls) romped to a 20-length runaway in Sunday’s A$300,000 Jericho Cup (4600m) at Warrnambool. It was the seventh win of a 29-start career for Farag, who has turned that meagre purchase price into A$331,358 in prize-money. This year’s Jericho Cup was the seventh running of the ultra-long-distance race, which was added to the Australian calendar in 2018 to commemorate…