Author: NZRacingDesk

After Here To Shock (NZ) (Shocking) returned his best season as a racehorse as a seven-year-old gelding, owner and syndicate manager Rob Slade is banking on him continuing that upward trajectory. “He’s getting better with age. He’s very lightly raced for a seven-year-old gelding as he has had only 37 starts and most horses his age would be in the 55-to-60-starts bracket,” Slade said of Here To Shock, who has won 13 races and $2.8 million in prizemoney. Here To Shock is back in work and being aimed first-up at…

Knobelas (NZ) (Belardo) has continued the winning form of OTI Racing with victory in a race at Sandown, hours after the colours were worn to success at Royal Ascot. Docklands gave OTI Racing one of their biggest victories when successful in the opening race of the five-day Royal Ascot meeting, the Queen Anne Stakes over the straight mile course on Tuesday night (Australian time). Knobelas won over a similar trip in the OTI Racing colours, taking out the Stow Storage Solutions Handicap (1600m) at Sandown on Wednesday. Prepared by Mick…

A month after his barnstorming stakes victory at Ellerslie, smart juvenile Do You Just (NZ) (So You Think) has been sold and will continue his racing career in Hong Kong. The son of So You Think showed promise through his two-year-old season, but it wasn’t until the Listed Champagne Stakes (1600m) in mid-May that he showed his true colours, leading up and spacing his rivals by 6-½ lengths. That performance came as little surprise for co-trainer Lance O’Sullivan, who shared in the ownership of Do You Just with Waikato Stud,…

Lisa Latta will hold a strong hand in Friday’s two-year-old feature at Otaki, with Platinum Diamond (NZ) (Hello Youmzain) tipped as her top seed. The Awapuni trainer will have able back-up in the Listed John Turkington Forestry Castletown Stakes (1200m) with Brutiful Lass and Platinum Pantheon also in contention. Platinum Diamond has earned top billing from the stable after the highly encouraging start the daughter of Hello Youmzain has made to her career. The filly made late ground to run fourth at her Hawera debut in early May and then…

Aptly-named homebred Country Salon will be out to continue Gavin Sharrock’s golden run with his juveniles this season when he tackles Friday’s Listed John Turkington Forestry Castletown Stakes (1200m) at Otaki. The two-year-old son of Darci Brahma holds great sentimental value to Sharrock, with the Taranaki horseman naming Country Salon and his dam after his daughter. “My daughter and I raced (his dam) Uniquebotique together,” Sharrock said. “She has got a little hair salon on her farm called Unique Boutique and that’s how that mare got her name. She is…

Fresh from a runaway victory in Saturday’s A$160,000 Listed The Wayne Wilson (1600m) at Eagle Farm, connections of Group One galloper Pier (NZ) (Proisir) are formulating plans for the spring. The Darryn and Briar Weatherley-trained gelding will enjoy a break in the Queensland sun after a three-start campaign that saw the 2022 Gr.1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas (1600m) winner return to something like his best. The son of Proisir produced powerful finishes for placings in the Listed City Of Napier Sprint (1200m) at Trentham and the Gr.3 BRC Sprint (1350m)…

Harvey Wilson has been successful in a number of New Zealand’s major jumping races, but before he was training racehorses, he scaled even greater heights in the show jumping arena. Growing up in the Wanganui region, Wilson was surrounded by horses, hunting and racing, but serious competition came later in his teenage years. “My parents rode, not extensively, but they hunted, and my father was an amateur rider and rode in the point to points in those days,” he said. “He was involved in the Waverley Racing Club for a…

Mark Oulaghan is keeping his options open with three runners entered in Friday’s Harcourts Otaki Raukawa Cup (2100m), all of whom may head in different directions. The first of Oulaghan’s representatives is Jack Morrison (NZ) (Darci Brahma), a force to be reckoned with on all-weather tracks, as shown in all of his five victories coming on the Awapuni Synthetic. He has added two of those in his last two starts, and with an open staying race at that venue on Sunday, that is the probable direction for the son of…

Emily Murphy brings you Winter Weigh In, your place for Thoroughbred racing news, reviews and insights throughout the colder months. We recap all the thrills and spills from an exciting jumps day at Te Rapa as well Kiwi success across the ditch. Winter Weigh In, June 16

Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh has singled out the Rating 73 handicap as his best chance of success at his home synthetic track meeting on Wednesday. He will be represented by Billy Lincoln (NZ) (Belardo), Sinhaman (NZ) (Tivaci) and Penurious (NZ) (Sacred Falls) in The Oaks Stud (1550m) and indicated the former to most likely to be his leading light in the contest. The Belardo four-year-old finished a respectable seventh in an open handicap at Ellerslie two runs back and was then a close course and distance second on his local…