Month: May 2025

The expected wet-track form was suddenly thrown out the window when wild weather forced Saturday’s Riccarton meeting to be moved to the Polytrack, but class shone through in the three open handicaps on the card. Tumuch (NZ) (Satono Aladdin) took out the Avon City Ford Easter Cup (1600m), Buoyant (NZ) (Dalghar) won the Bush Inn Open Sprint (1200m) and Star Ballot (NZ) (Tarzino) ran away with the Hornby Club Founders Cup (2200m). The trio won those races by a combined margin of 11 and three-quarter lengths. The surface switch proved…

Handsome two-year-old Towering Vision (NZ) (Circus Maximus) broke his maiden status in the best possible fashion when he took out the Listed Waikato Equine Veterinary Centre Stakes (1400m) in a torrid finish at Te Rapa. The win also provided his sire Circus Maximus, the European triple Group One winner who stands at Windsor Park Stud in Cambridge, with his first Southern Hemisphere stakes winner from his first crop on the track in Australasia. Having just his third start and second run since a summer break, Towering Vision settled nicely for…

In a week where wild weather affected a number of race meetings it was the aptly named Force Of Nature (NZ) (Savabeel) that continued a stellar run of form with victory in the Modern Transport Group (1200m) at Te Rapa. The Andrew Forsman-prepared son of Savabeel went into the Open 1200m contest off a winning performance in rating 75 company at the venue back in April, that kicked off his autumn campaign on the best possible note. Apprentice Tristan Moodley had the four-year-old travelling sweetly throughout on Saturday and angled…

Lucy In The Sky (NZ) (Hello Youmzain) made history on Saturday as the winner of the first stakes race run on a synthetic track in New Zealand, but Cambridge Stud had other reasons to savour the talented filly’s victory in the Listed Berkley Stud Champagne Stakes (1200m). Bred and raced by Cambridge Stud owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay, Lucy In The Sky is a first-crop daughter of the stud’s exciting shuttle stallion Hello Youmzain. On Saturday she became his first stakes winner in the southern hemisphere. The Tony Pike-trained Lucy…

Kiwi-bred gelding Canadian Ruler (NZ) (Vancouver) mastered a testing topweight and won the A$120,000 TAB Highway Handicap (1500m) impressively at Hawkesbury on Saturday. The four-year-old son of Vancouver headed into the race with two wins and seven placings to his name from a 12-race career, and he was lumbered with a big impost of 62.5kg. Trainer Matthew Dale secured the services of in-form apprentice jockey Braith Nock, whose 2kg claim reduced that weight to 60.5kg. Canadian Ruler was first to leave the starting gates, but Nock was happy to let…

Moira and Kieran Murdoch will be represented by a pair of promising mares at Te Rapa on Saturday, and both are half-sisters to Group One winners. The mother-daughter training partnership will saddle Cambridge Stud’s last-start winner Andorra (NZ) (Pierro) in the TAB Racing Club (2100m). Just over half an hour later, Butterscotch (NZ) (Preferment) will line up for her first raceday start for owner-breeder Joan Egan in the Cure Kids (1400m). Cambridge Stud owners Brendan and Jo Lindsay paid $450,000 to buy Andorra from Book 1 of Karaka 2022. She…

Following a deluge of rain in Canterbury over the last 48-hours, with both Christchurch City and Selwyn District entering a state of emergency, Riccarton’s Saturday meeting has been transferred to its synthetic track. “The (Canterbury Jockey) Club and the RIB (Racing Integrity Board) inspected the (turf) track post the abandonment of the races (Riccarton synthetic) yesterday and it was water-logged,” New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR) chief operating officer Darin Balcombe said. “We had trainers ringing up from the bottom of the South Island that were going to leave home first…