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NZ Racing and Breeding News – 12 February 2024
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Pike fillies show class at Te Rapa
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Molly in full Bloom for breeder
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Doubles for Ballymore and Pencarrow at Tauranga
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Molly back in full Bloom for breeder
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Tauranga doubles for Ballymore and Pencarrow
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Pike fillies show class in Te Rapa features
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Selections | Wairio
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Whale Watch – Winton
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Aurora’s Symphony claims Group 3 Hobart Cup
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Mr Brightside tired after Orr heroics
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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
'TDN Rising Star' presented by Hagyard Senza Parole (Gun Runner) made light work of six overmatched rivals in what was most assuredly a prep for a return to stakes competition over the coming weeks. The 4-5 favorite was off alertly from the two hole and was allowed to find her footing before creeping closer midway up the backstretch. Kept well out into the track while clocking the pacesetters, Senza Parole went from the fence into the three path in the blink of an eye at the five-sixteenths and the race was all but parceled up. Edging towards the front under a hold turning into the lane, the chestnut went farther clear with each stride to crush. Named a 'Rising Star' when thumping Saratoga maidens in the summer of 2024, Senza Parole was a comebacking second off a 366-day absence at the Spa Aug. 24, was fifth in the GII Gallant Bloom Stakes and gutted out a narrow allowance victory sprinting at Aqueduct Nov. 13. The form of that event was flattered when runner-up Grammy Girl (Mastery) returned to take the Willa On the Move Stakes at Laurel. Senza Parole is the lone starter out of a daughter of three-time graded winner Sacristy (Pulpit), herself the dam of SW & GSP Catiche (Arrogate) and SW & GISP Flor de la Mar (Tiznow). Sacristy's half-sister Mozu Superflare (Speightstown) earned better than $3.7 million in Japan, including a victory–via DQ–in the G1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen. Senza Parole has a 3-year-old half-sister named Senza Piu (Good Magic) and a yearling half-sister by Tacitus. Her dam is due to produce a full-sibling to Senza Parole this season. 7th-Gulfstream, $71,360, Alw (C), Opt. Clm ($62,500), 1-15, 4yo/up, f/m, 1m, 1:38.01, gd, 7 1/4 lengths. SENZA PAROLE (f, 4, Gun Runner–Senza Te, by Street Cry {Ire}) Sales history: $120,000 RNA Ylg '23 KEESEP; $240,000 RNA 2yo '24 OBSAPR. Lifetime Record: 5-3-1-0, $178,000. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by FanDuel TV. O-Don Alberto Stable; B-Don Alberto Corporation (KY); T-Chad C Brown. The post Gun Runner ‘Rising Star’ ‘Senz’-ational On Seasonal Debut appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
John Velazquez, who served as chairman of the Jockeys' Guild for more than 20 years and as co-chair with Mike Smith since 2018, will be stepping down from that role. However, Velazquez will remain actively involved with the Guild as a board member. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
By Dave Di Somma, Harness News Desk What a story it will be if Typhoon Tere could pull off a victory at Blenheim today. Incredibly, the nine-year-old son of Washington VC is having just his second race day start, over five years after his debut at Addington. Then (July 24, 2020) he was trained by Ken Barron. Now he is under the care of Jason and Ian Thomas. Recent years have had their challenges. “At one stage he cracked a pastern and had to be boxed for a while,” says Jason Thomas. That was well before he arrived at their Charing Cross stables in Canterbury. “We have had him about eight or nine months.” Not that he wasn’t exactly in tip top shape when he arrived. “He was a big boy!” laughs Thomas, “we had him on rations for a bit with plenty of dry hay.” Over the months they have gradually worked him into shape. “We’ve got him to the point where he is as good as we can get him and we just hope to keep him sound.” Initially the plan was for Typhoon Tere to resume at Motukarara on December 29. “But he got a virus so we pulled him out,” says Thomas. They then looked around for a suitable grass track meeting and decided on Blenheim. “We thought that after a five year break we couldn’t take him to Addington where they’d run a (1)57-58 mile,” says Thomas, “we need to take our time.” In December Typhoon Tere definitely showed he still has some ability, winning at the Ashburton trials when he came off the back of subsequent Nelson winner Shanky’s Shot. “He went really nice that day” says Thomas. Today he’ll line up in Race 3, the Event Rent Marlborough Mobile Pace (3.17pm). On the back of his trials form he opened a $2.70 favourite. The gelding’s owner Lance Proffit and his “new” trainers will have everything crossed that their patience and hard work will get its reward. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance's annual Off to the Races online benefit auction opens Thursday, Jan. 22 at 10 a.m. ET and closes Friday, Jan. 30 at 10 p.m. ET, it was announced Thursday. The online auction provides a chance to bid on 20 VIP racing experience packages, granting access to major race days at renowned racetracks across North America in 2026. “We are thrilled to open the fifth annual edition of the Off to the Races VIP auction,” said Emily Dresen, Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, Director of Fundraising & Events. “We can't wait to share these opportunities with race fans and industry participants-there is something for everyone! Thanks to our generous donors, we have the unique opportunity to celebrate the sport of horse racing and provide critical funding to support Thoroughbred aftercare.” Visit thoroughbredaftercare.org/offtotheraces to view and bid on all VIP experiences. The post Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance’s Off to the Races Auction Begins January 22 appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Since the death of Ian Balding, we have been reflecting on treasured memories not only of the highly respected trainer but also of one of Kingsclere's greatest patrons, Paul Mellon. It was fitting, therefore, that Andrew Balding should have won at Newcastle last Friday with Level Look, who was bred by Emma Balding at Kingsclere Stud and is raced by the Kingsclere Racing Club, whose horses keep the famous black and gold Mellon silks alive. On a much grander scale, another fitting recent result was that of the General Sires' Championship of Great Britain and Ireland for 2025, in which both the new champion sire (Night Of Thunder) and the runner-up (Wootton Bassett) hail from families developed by Mellon. Continuity was a keystone of Paul Mellon's racing enterprise. The decades passed and he continued to enjoy success with the same families, equine and human. That too is the theme at Kingsclere Stud and Level Look is a classic example. His sixth dam Anippe (Aggressor) was among the two-year-olds trained at Kingsclere by Ian Balding in his second season as the licence-holder, 1965, during which year she won at Salisbury and Newbury. In 1968 she visited the first top-class horse whom Balding trained, Paul Mellon's home-bred 1964 Coventry and Dewhurst Stakes winner Silly Season. The result of that mating was Level Look's fifth dam Siliciana, who was trained by Balding to win the Lincoln Handicap in 1973. All the mares along the line from there to Little Look were trained at Kingsclere, as were all their sires except Little Look's maternal grandsire Intello. (The other stallions who contributed were Mill Reef, Selkirk, Dashing Blade and, most recently, Little Look's sire Passing Glance). Paul Mellon's connection with Kingsclere's human family dates back even farther. He began owning horses in England early in 1936 when sending Drinmore Lad, winner of the Camden Steeplechase Cup in Virginia, to the Wroughton stable owned by the widow of the Hon. Aubrey Hastings, on the suggestion of his compatriot and friend Ambrose Clark. The trainer there was Ivor Anthony, who had taken over the licence after Hastings had died in 1929 and who had subsequently sent out Mrs Clark's Kellsboro' Jack to win the Grand National in 1933. Mellon was welcomed at Wroughton by Mrs Hastings and her family, which included her teenaged son Peter, who was still at school at the time. The plan had been that Drinmore Lad would contest the Grand National. Early betting markets had him disputing favouritism with the mighty Golden Miller, who by this time was trained by Ivor Anthony's brother Owen at Letcombe Bassett, having left Basil Briscoe's Exning stable at the end of the 1934/'35 season. However, Drinmore Lad ran poorly in his lead-up race and didn't contest the great race (in which Golden Miller, who had just won his fifth Cheltenham Gold Cup, fell at the first fence). Drinmore Lad ended up never running in a Grand National but Mellon's love of England and its racing, both National Hunt and Flat, meant that plenty of other big races in Britain would feature his famous silks. There was, incidentally, a nice post-script to Drinmore Lad's tale when, 30 years later, Mellon owned a young National Hunt horse who looked so like him that he named him Drinny's Double. Trained by Bob Turnell, Drinny's Double carried Mellon's colours to victory in the Two-Mile Champion Chase at two consecutive Cheltenham Festivals, in 1967 and '68. Peter (whose surname became Hastings-Bass in 1954 to comply with a stipulation in the will of his maternal uncle, Sir William Bass) reached adulthood in time to serve in the Welsh Guards during the war, after which he acted as assistant to Ivor Anthony for six years before taking over the Wroughton stable. Mellon was a staunchly supportive patron from the outset. In 1953 Peter moved to Kingsclere, which he had bought from Evan Williams. The latter had ridden the Ivor Anthony-trained Royal Mail to victory in the Grand National in 1937 before starting to train at Kingsclere, whence he sent out Supreme Court to win the inaugural King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, whose value of £25,000 made it the most valuable race ever run in Britain at that time. Peter Hastings-Bass quickly became one of Britain's leading trainers. One notable result came when he provided Mellon with his first major victory in England courtesy of his home-bred American colt Midsummer Night in the Cambridgeshire Handicap in 1960. Three years later, the trainer enjoyed further success with another of Mellon's American home-breds when Secret Step, a four-year-old daughter of Native Dancer, won the July Cup at Newmarket and the King George Stakes at Goodwood. Tragically, Peter Hastings-Bass died of cancer in June 1964, aged only 44. Jockey Club rules did not permit his widow Priscilla to take over, so the license at Kingsclere passed to his 25-year-old assistant Ian Balding. Five years later, Balding married Peter and Priscilla's daughter Emma; two years after that, owner/breeder and trainer secured the biggest prize of them all when Mill Reef won the Derby. And now in 2026, 55 years after Mill Reef's superb three-year-old campaign and 90 years after Mellon made the acquaintance of Peter Hastings and his mother, we have just seen Mellon's colours carried to victory by a horse who has both Silly Season and Mill Reef in his pedigree, who was bred by Emma's Kingsclere Stud and is trained by Andrew. Long-running sagas of friendship don't come much better than that. Level Look's victory at Newcastle, of course, was not at a high level, unlike many of the triumphs during 2025 of the sons and daughters of Night Of Thunder and Wootton Bassett. Fittingly, one of the best contributors to Night Of Thunder's championship season was the Balding-trained Dewhurst winner Gewan. Mellon would have enjoyed that but, in truth, he would have appreciated all of the success enjoyed by both Night Of Thunder and Wootton Bassett. Both stallions have Mellon's Rokeby Farm in Virginia etched firmly in their pedigrees, each descending from one of his best mares. Night Of Thunder's family came to Europe in the autumn of 1979 when his fifth dam Leap Lively (Nijinsky) was one of the yearlings who left Rokeby Farm and headed across the Atlantic to Kingsclere. Ten years previously Mill Reef had made the same journey. She proved to be a very good filly, winning the G2 Fillies' Mile at Ascot as a juvenile in record time and finishing third in the following year's Oaks. She returned to Rokeby and in 1983 was one of the first mares to visit the Star Kingdom-line stallion Green Forest (Shecky Greene) who had been a champion miler in France the previous year. The resultant filly was tiny but had the heart of a lion. Trained by Ian Balding, Forest Flower gave Mellon two of his happiest days in the game. She won three major races as a two-year-old including, most appropriately, the G2 Mill Reef Stakes. The following year she galloped to even greater glory in the Irish 1,000 Guineas. Forest Flower bred nothing as special as she herself had been, despite visiting leading stallions on both sides of the Atlantic including Mr. Prospector and Shirley Heights. She also visited (in 1991) Mill Reef's Derby- and St Leger-winning son Reference Point, a magnificent racehorse who was disappointing at stud. The filly which that mating produced, Hertford Castle, turned out to be one of the most modest horses ever to carry Mellon's silks, cutting no ice at all in three maiden races in 1994. Consequently, she did not gain a place in Mellon's broodmare band. However, at stud she produced two listed-placed winners including Night Of Thunder's granddam Quiet Storm (Desert Prince). Sent to Galileo in 2005, Quiet Storm produced Forest Storm who, trained by Jim Bolger for Miss A. H. Marshall, emulated her dam by winning a maiden race and finishing second in listed company. Those were good achievements by Forest Storm but have been totally eclipsed by her greatest feat, producing a Dubawi colt in 2011 who stands proud as a 2,000 Guineas winner and now the Champion Sire of Britain and Ireland. Wootton Bassett comes from a family which garnered even greater honours for Rokeby. Mellon bought his fifth dam Blue Banner (War Admiral) as a yearling in 1953, on the advice of his original jumps trainer Jack Skinner, and she became a multiple stakes winner and then a terrific broodmare. In the short term she bred several stakes winners, but long term it was her unraced daughter Key Bridge who proved most significant. A daughter of Princequillo (who was also responsible for Mill Reef's dam Milan Mill), Key Bridge is notable not just as the fourth dam of Wootton Bassett but also as dam of two of the best horses ever raced by Rokeby Stable. Key Bridge's first star was Fort Marcy (Amerigo), an outstanding turf horse who won 21 races including the Washington DC International (which in the pre-Breeders' Cup days was easily the most significant turf race in North America) in both 1967 and 1970. In the latter year he was the Daily Racing Form's Horse of the Year. Nearly as great was Key To The Mint (Graustark). Despite not contesting the Kentucky Derby and then finishing only third in the Preakness and fourth in the Belmont, Key To The Mint ended 1972 voted American's Champion Three-Year-Old Colt thanks to a slew of stakes victories including Grade I triumphs in the Whitney, Travers and Woodward Stakes and the Suburban Handicap. Mellon subsequently bred several good horses by him including Java Gold (a three-time US Grade I winner) and Gold And Ivory, winner of three Group 1 races in Europe. Key Bridge's foals also included maiden winner Gliding By (Tom Rolfe), who produced two stakes winners trained by Ian Balding: Clare Bridge (Little Current), who won the Masaka Stakes at Kempton and the Gilltown Stud Stakes at the Curragh, and Song Of Sixpence (The Minstrel), the winner of 10 races including the Winter Hill Stakes at Windsor. Another daughter, Susquehanna Days (Chief's Crown), was less talented but scored at Warwick and Nottingham before being sold by Mellon at Tattersalls' December Sale in 1993 for 16,500gns. She now holds the considerably greater distinction of being the granddam of Wootton Bassett. One of the great gentlemen of the turf, Paul Mellon died in 1999 at the age of 91, but it seems as if his legacy will live forever. The post Mellon’s Great Legacy Encompasses Kingsclere And The Sires’ Championship appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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