Latest news with #TarzinoTrophy
News.com.au
6 days ago
- Sport
- News.com.au
Pop Award primed for Caulfield as jockey Matthew Cartwright eyes NZ success
Jockey Matt Cartwright is focused on success in New Zealand next season but not before a farewell Caulfield winner on Saturday. Cartwright has a chance to help Pop Award, trained by grandmother Lyn Tolson and mother Leonie Proctor, graduate from metro midweek to Saturday class. Pop Award won three on the bounce last campaign with Blake Shinn in the saddle. An injury setback for Shinn, returned to the saddle only recently and earlier than expected, cleared a path for Cartwright to ride Pop Award. Shinn could also not quite make the 55kg for Saturday. Cartwright has piloted Pop Award in all her work this time in. 'I'm very privileged and happy to take the reins on the weekend,' Cartwright said. 'She's a good horse. She looks like she's coming up well, on track and trials I've ridden. 'Fingers crossed I could get a bit of luck and she gets the job done first-up … there are bigger targets in store and in mind so we are hoping she could go there and go close to winning.' Pop Award is $4.60 second favourite from Shinn's ride Verdoux ($3.60). Gala Queen ($5.50), Chinqui ($7.50) and Naval Academy ($9) round out the top five in betting. 'I definitely think she's up to Saturday class,' Cartwright said. 'She still has to step up … but I feel she has ability to do so.' Cartwright flies out on Monday for a second stint in New Zealand. He rode 53 winners in NZ this season, the Group 1 Tarzino Trophy among seven stakes successes. A winter break in Melbourne has reinvigorated Cartwright's ambitions to build on NZ momentum. 'I was stuck in a rut (before going to NZ) and really questioning if I was enjoying it,' Cartwright. 'I've regained the love for it again and New Zealand was a big part of that … hoping I can get a bit of luck and win another Group 1 or two.' Cartwright developed more confidence – personally and professionally – from the NZ experience. 'It definitely has made a big improvement to me, I was riding in lots of stakes and Group races, I feel like I got a lot of experience and I'm grateful for that,' Cartwright said. 'I want to set a few goals out and set a few plans and hopefully I can fulfil them in the new season.'
NZ Herald
16-07-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Ellerslie-Eden Park double looms in mammoth day for Auckland sport
And by complete fluke that Group 1, renamed the Proisir Plate, will now be run at Ellerslie. The first Group 1 is usually held at Hastings and has recently been known as the Tarzino Trophy, but the Hastings track is closed this spring for re-cambering work. That means Ellerslie wins the battle to host the race that officially launches spring racing, the Gold Trail Stakes and, quite appropriately considering the rugby tie-in, the Sir Colin Meads Trophy. The other two legs of what is usually the Hawkes Bay Triple Crown have also been moved, with NZTR announcing on Wednesday they will also come north after earlier programming them for Awapuni. The $400,000 1600m Group 1 formerly known as the Arrowfield Plate will now be held at Te Rapa on September 27 while what was known as the Livamol, the $550,000 Group 1 over 2040m, will also be held at Ellerslie on October 18. But it is the September 6 meeting which promises a unique racing-rugby crossover in Auckland. As anybody who has traveled to an All Blacks test in New Zealand knows, test day features hundreds, sometimes thousands, of rugby supporters dressed in black wandering from cafes to bars filling in time before the now usual 7.05pm kick-off. Wilcox has a ready made gathering point for them. 'It is going to be a huge day for Auckland sport and we are as excited as anybody about the Springboks coming to Auckland,' says the Auckland Thoroughbred Racing chief executive. 'But having our new Proisir Plate day on in the hours before is too good an opportunity to miss. 'So we are looking at ways of accommodating rugby fans who are in town and want to get warmed up for the test with some world-class racing and a place to get together. 'We are open to options and that at time of the season the racing is over nice and early so it gives the heaps of time to get to Eden Park. 'You can even get the train there from here so it is going to be a very cool day for people who love their racing and rugby. 'We know a lot of people will be heading to their hospitality options at the test around 5pm but we will give them somewhere to start their day first.' Star stallion Proisir will be the new name on the first Group 1 of the season over 1400m, with Rich Hill Stud jumping at the chance to help launch spring racing. The September 6 date will now loom large not only for rugby fans but also racing participants already growing tired of the constant heavy tracks this winter has dished up. While there are winter highlights like West Coast's attempt to win a fourth Grand National at Riccarton and the Waikato Stud Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa on August 23 still to come, Ellerslie's first meeting of the season will now be the one circled on many calendars. Ellerslie have finished a hugely successful season where after a tricky bedding first stint for their StrathAyr track, it raced beautifully this term. 'We were stoked with the track and it has had its annual maintenance and is looking really good,' says Wilcox. Ellerslie has already started looking even further into the 2025-26 season, which starts on August 1, with tickets on sale for its major racedays. That includes tickets for most meetings up until January 1 but also next year's Karaka Millions meeting (January 24) and Champions Day (March 7). Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald's Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world's biggest horse racing carnivals.
NZ Herald
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Racing superstars promise music and words for top Kiwi trainers
Add to that the fact Orchestral's yearling sister was sold for a New Zealand record $2.4 million at the Karaka sales in January and Orchestral is almost too valuable to continue racing, especially after a season of wild form swings. But James, who trains the daughter of Savabeel with Robert Wellwood, says there has been no retirement talk, even as a plan B. 'She is going to remain a racehorse until she shows us she doesn't want to be,' he told the Herald. 'Her owners love racing her so that is the plan. Ideally we would like to bring her up and all going well head to Melbourne in the spring. 'Australia is the first aim because usually the tracks are better there than here in the spring but if she didn't come up exactly how we wanted, that could be revisited. 'But they want to race on and we are confident she will come back a better mare next season.' James says the four-year-old season can be very taxing on mares just out of three-year-old ranks and in Orchestral's case, that was made even more difficult by her ongoing hormonal problems. 'They are obviously an issue and we just need to learn how to manage those better,' says James. 'But those aside, I think when you look back on her beaten runs this season, she often had an excuse.' Like most of the elite New Zealand gallopers eyeing up a potential spring campaign in Australia, Orchestral could now have the option of at least one start in New Zealand, with the first Group 1 of next season, the Tarzino Trophy, almost certainly moving to Ellerslie in September. That means less travel than if the Tarzino was held at its traditional home of Hastings, which is likely to be under renovation this spring, but also the better surface all but guaranteed by Ellerslie's StrathAyr track. That could make the Tarzino a perfect launchpad for Australian raids later in the spring. The forgotten horse of the James/Wellwood stable is already in Melbourne but will be travelling the other way across the Tasman, with Mark Twain set to return to New Zealand to rejoin the Cambridge stable. Mark Twain gained automatic entry into last year's Melbourne Cup when winning the Roy Higgins at Flemington in March 2024 and was being set for the iconic race when he suffered a tendon strain last August. He has remained in Victoria since to be rehabbed but will return home in a month for a long build-up, hopefully ending in a new racetrack campaign. Mark Twain, also a NZ Derby and Auckland Cup placegetter, hasn't raced since winning that Roy Higgins, and if James and Wellwood are able to get him back to his best, his most realistic targets would be in Australia as the rising six-year-old would be weighted out of our biggest staying races. Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald's Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world's biggest horse racing carnivals.
NZ Herald
23-04-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Awapuni relaunch could see Group 1 bonuses next season
'When the track was pulled up we saw the drains on that home bend just weren't working,' explains Taylor. 'But that wasn't the only issue and the whole track was pulled up and re-laid. 'The track now has a better camber and the drainage is so much better. 'It has been a long process so we are thrilled to be back.' Relaunching a newly-laid turf track can be a nervy process in this age of way too many race meeting cancellations but Taylor and his team are confident the Awapuni track is ready to go back to work. 'I'd estimate we have had 500 horses gallop over the new surface,' he explains. 'We have had jumpouts and trials and we have around 200 horses trained here using it for at least some of their work. 'So it has had a lot of hooves go over it and the reports are all really positive. 'We had 30 horses gallop here on it on Tuesday and even after a fair bit of rain their riders were saying it was no worse than a soft 6. 'The main change is the drainage. We now have lateral drains that go right across the track and it has changed every thing.' The relaunch will be highlighted by the $80,000 Manawatū ITM Anzac Mile featuring Group 1 winner He's A Doozy while there will be an after party to celebrate the return of grass track racing to the track. The new surface will have another grass track meeting next month before the turf track is rested for the winter, with the synthetic track to be used. But the new, improved Awapuni could be in for two huge Group 1 bonuses next season with the last two legs of the Group I Triple Crown usually held at Hastings almost certainly heading to Awapuni. Advertise with NZME. With the future of the Hastings track still under a cloud the draft calendar for next season tentatively has the first of the G1 treble, the Tarzino Trophy, down to be run at Ellerslie before both the 1600m and 2000m legs being staged at Awapuni. The 1400m Group 1 being held at Ellerslie makes sense as it is closer to the elite horse population and that race can sometimes be used as a launching point for trainers wanting to head to Australia. But the latter two legs being staged at Awapuni would keep Group 1 racing in the Central Districts for spring, if in fact that draft of the calendar becomes the official version at the next New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing calendar meeting in May. While the Triple Crown of Group 1s being moved to Ellerslie and Awapuni may alarm Hawke's Bay racing fans, the Herald understands NZTR will make an announcement in coming weeks about the future of racing at Hastings. Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald's Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world's biggest horse racing carnivals.
