Hastings-trained horses completed a winning treble at last Saturday’s Wanganui meeting, with the spoils shared between three different stables.
Exit Left, trained by the husband and wife team of Mick Brown and Sue Thompson, won a $40,000 Rating 65 race over 1200m; Bedtime Story from the stable of Guy Lowry and Leah Zydenbos took out the $50,000 Open sprint over 1340m and the Patrick Campbell-trained Say I Do triumphed in a $40,000 Rating 65 race over 1600m.
Exit Left was recording his second win and his first since he took out a 1400m maiden, on a heavy track, at Woodville in November 2024. But the Turn Me Loose five year-old has been very lightly raced, with last Saturday’s run being only his 11th start.
“He’s been a bit weak really so we have had to take our time with him,” Mick Brown said this week.
“After he won on debut at Woodville we gave him a start at Rotorua and he didn’t go any good so we chucked him out for a spell.
“Since he’s come back he has run seconds and thirds and then he only finished eighth at Trentham in October so we tipped him out again.
“He’s just needed time and has come back a lot stronger now.”
Exit Left was having his first start for nearly five months when he lined up last Saturday but had indicated he was ready for a bold fresh up run with a strong performance in a recent Waipukurau jumpout.
“The wet track helped him too,” Brown added.
“As soon as I heard it had rained there (Wanganui) I thought he would be hard to beat.”
Apprentice jockey Floor Moerman bounced Exit Left out quickly from the 1200m barrier to take a clear lead early. They were briefly taken on in front before taking control again approaching the home turn and, once in the straight, Exit Left kicked clear to win by a length.
It was a win that suggested Exit Left should go on to better things in the coming months, especially with the onset of wet tracks.
He is owned by Hastings woman Margaret Harkema, who paid only $1500 to purchase the gelding off the Gavelhouse online auction site.
He is out of the Handsome Ransom mare Abeautifulred, who only won two races but finished second in the 2011 running of the Group 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m) at Riccarton and was also third in the Group 3 Cuddle Stakes (1600m) at Trentham.
Brown said he is unsure where Exit Left will start next as there is a lack of Rating 75 races over 1400m in the Central Districts.
“He probably won’t run again for three or four weeks,” he said.
Bedtime Story also made a winning return from a spell when she got in the deciding stride in a close three-way finish to the feature race at Wanganui last Saturday.
The Per Incanto mare had not raced since finishing well back over 1600m at Trentham on January 3 but had won three times when fresh up in the past and showed she was ready to show her best with an easy trial win over 1000m at Foxton on March 3.
Trainers Guy Lowry and Leah Zydenbos decided to add visor blinkers to her gear, which helped her chances, but she also had to lump equal topweight of 60kg.
Jockey Kelly Myers jumped the mare out well from the barrier to take up a trailing position third behind the pacemaking Cooper.
While Bruno Queiroz stuck to the inside fence aboard Cooper rounding the home turn, Myers angled Bedtime Story to the outside in search of better ground.
It was hard to line them up as the field thundered down the straight, with Cooper hugging the inside rail while Bedtime Story and the challengers were mounting runs out wide.
Cooper looked to have held on as the field crossed the line but the photo-finish showed that Bedtime Story had lunged right on the line to beat him by a nose, with the fast-finishing Old Bill Bone only a nose away in third place.
Bedtime Story was recording her fifth win but her first since leading all the way in a Rating 75 race over 1400m at Otaki in December 2024.
In the interim she has been placed in some strong races, including a second in the Group 3 weight-for-age Rotorua ITM Stakes (1400m) in May last year.
Lowry said Bedtime Story may now contest the Group 1 $600,000 New Zealand Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1600m) at Trentham next Saturday.
The five-year-old races in the colours of her breeder Henrietta Duchess Of Bedford, who races her in partnership with a group that includes Hawke’s Bay couple David and Jan Harrison, Havelock North’s Tim Gillespie and the estate of the late Colin Bremner, who was a former president of the Waipukurau Jockey Club.
Bedtime Story is out of the unraced Tavistock mare Happy Endings and a grand-daughter of Snap, whose 11 wins included Group 1 victories in the Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes (1400m), New Zealand 1000 Guineas (1600m), New Zealand Oaks (2400m) and the Waikato Draught Sprint (1400m).
Say I Do certainly deserved to break through for another win at Wanganui last Saturday after recording three seconds and two fourths from her last five starts.
The Pierro mare was following up a game second over1600m at Tauherenikau on March 5, where she set the pace and was run down late by the promising Plain Sailing.
The five-year-old mare began quickly to take an early lead again in last Saturday’s 1600m event but rider Mereana Hudson was able to get her to settle well in front and dictate the pace accordingly.
Hudson angled her to the centre of the track in the home straight and the mare still had plenty in reserve when challenged, surging clear in the final stages to win by half a length and record her second win from 26 starts.
Say I Do originally started out in the stable of Hastings trainer John Bary after she had been purchased by Auckland-based Narendra Balia for $90,000 at the 2022 Karaka yearling sales.
Bary prepared the horse for a maiden win over 1300m at Tauherenikau in January 2024 but she only managed one third placing from her next nine starts and was offered for sale on Gavelhouse.
Patrick Campbell and close friend Dene Smith managed to buy the horse for $4500 and she has now won them more than $39,000 in stakemoney.
Say I Do descends from the family of the good racemare Love Dance, whose wins included the 1996 Group 1 Kelt Capital Stakes (2040m) at Hastings while a yearling half-sister to the mare, by Armory, sold for $10,000 at last Sunday’s Highview Stud dispersal sale.
Say I Do is now likely to return to Wanganui on April 6 for another Rating 65 race over 1600m and Campbell is keen to try the mare over a middle distance in the near future.
Vale Peter Evans
Waipukurau racing identity Peter Evans died on Friday of last week aged 82.
Evans was a breeder, owner and trainer of thoroughbreds and was also the Waipukurau racecourse manager for six years and a long-serving committee member of the Waipukurau Jockey Club.
He was involved in racing for more than 60 years, with his proudest moment coming in March of 2009 when My Astron took out the Group 2 $150,000 Japan/New Zealand Trophy Race (1600m) at Tauranga.
That win was a triumph for three of racing’s battlers as not only was it Evans’ biggest success but it also credited the horse’s Hastings trainer Kelly Burne with her first Group race win and jockey Kane Smith with his first success at Group 2 level.
Ironically that same race was run at Tauranga last Saturday, the day after Evens passed away.
My Astron was undoubtedly the best horse Evans owned, with the My Halo gelding recording six wins, nine seconds and six thirds from 40 starts and amassing more than $283,000 in stakemoney.
He followed up his Japan/New Zealand Trophy Race win with a game third in the Group 1 Easter Handicap (1600m) at Ellerslie.
When that horse’s racing career finished Evans decided to breed and train horses himself. He bought a Sandtrap weanling out of Arriba Arriba for $9000 at the Karaka sales and named him Sanriba.
The little gelding rarely ran a bad race in a 61 start career, chalking up five wins, 10 seconds and 11 thirds and earning more than $88,000 in stakemoney.
Sanriba was raced by Evans in partnership with his wife Ann along with their son Royce and close family friend Lyn Bibby and caused a major upset when winning a 1200m race at Awapuni in December 2013 at odds of 37 to one.
Evans then managed to purchase Sanriba’s dam Arriba Arriba and bred a full-sister named Aribasan. She only one won race but also recorded three minor placings from a limited racing career.
Evans has been back in the winner’s circle again in recent times as he was a shareholder in Pacific Princess, who capped off a string of minor placings with a maiden win over 1400m at Trentham on September 20.
The Ocean Park mare, trained at Hastings by John Bary, was bred and owned by Evans’ close friend Wayne Chittick along with his brother Allen Chittick and cousin Garry Chittick.
Pacific Princess lined up in a 2200m race at Waverley on Wednesday, the day of Peter Evans’ funeral, and finished an unlucky sixth after being blocked for a run in the home straight.
Evans was also a shareholder in Ivy Lee, a Rageese mare who finished third in a 1200m maiden race at Trentham on March 1 but was unplaced over 1400m at Waverley on Wednesday.
Helen Ormsby, another stalwart of the Waipukurau Jockey Club, also died last Monday.
She was the wife of former Waipukurau Jockey Club treasurer and long-serving committeeman Michael Ormsby and was heavily involved in equestrian circles, especially the hunting scene and Horse Of The Year competitions.