Lightly raced Hawke’s Bay galloper Anaroa returned to the sort of form he showed 12 months ago when scoring another dominant win on the Tauherenikau track on January 2.
The Time Test four-year-old, bred and owned by Hawke’s Bay farmer Graeme Wedd and trained on the Hastings track by Guy Lowry and Leah Zydenbos, indicated he could now go on to better things when scoring a 2-3/4 length victory in a Rating 65 race over 1300m.
It was only the gelding’s 10th career start and he now boasts a record of two wins, a third and two fourths.
He recorded a fourth over 1400m and a third over 1600m in the summer of last year before breaking through for a four length maiden win over 2050m at Tauherenikau on February 6.
His connections thought enough of the horse back then to take on the top three-year-olds in the Group 1 New Zealand Derby (2400m) the following month but it was a bridge too far for the horse at that stage and he finished last of 17 runners.
Anaroa was then given a lengthy spell and has come back a much stronger horse as a four-year-old. He resumed with an unplaced performance over 1600m on the first day of the Hawke’s Bay Spring carnival on September 7 and was having his fourth start back when he lined up at Tauherenikau last week.
Apprentice jockey Lil Sutherland bounced Anaroa out quickly from the barrier to lead in the first 100m before settling him into a perfect trail.
She started urging the gelding along to chase the pacemaking Lohnagan approaching the home turn and they took over early in the home straight before working clear in the final 100m for an impressive win.
Graeme Wedd has bred and raced thoroughbreds, off and on, for more than 50 years and stood the stallion Prince Conti on his Raukawa Road farm property for a time.
He bred Anaroa out of the Thorn Park mare Sentosa Park, a horse that showed good potential with a win and two minor placings from three barrier trials but suffered a bowed tendon in the second of her only two race starts and was immediately retired.
Wedd decided to mate Sentosa Park with his resident stallion Prince Conti and the first foal was Count Conti, a gelding who was a trial winner but then placed only once from eight career starts.
The second foal, also by Prince Conti, was a filly called Countess Conti. She showed promise when recording a maiden win over 1650m at Hastings but, unfortunately, also suffered a bowed tendon when finishing second over 1600m at Woodville at her next start which ended her racing career.
Anaroa is the third and final foal produced by Sentosa Park, who has now ceased breeding.
Graeme Wedd has been involved with thoroughbreds since the 1970s and was studmaster at Hawke’s Bay’s Whanakino Station at a time when the 1977 Melbourne Cup winner Gold And Black was born on the property.
He used to have horses prepared for him by legendary trainer Brian Smith (of Balmerino fame) but then took a break from racing for a time.
He still rates Positive Attitude as the best horse he has raced, with the son of Fiesta Star winning a race by seven lengths at Te Awamutu one day.
The horse was later sold for $35,000 to Macau, which was a good price back in those days, and helped pay for the education of Wedd’s children.
Shelbyrock’n runs her rivals ragged
Underrated mare Shelbyrock’n, owned by Dannevirke couple Jim Small and Lyn Anstis, capped off a string of minor placings with a decisive all the way win in a Rating 75 race at Tauherenikau on January 2.
The seven-year-old daughter of Rock ‘N’ Pop, ridden by in-form Hawke’s Bay jockey Kate Hercock, went straight to the front in the 1300m event and never looked like being caught, crossing the line with a 4-1/4 length advantage over second placed Charlotte Way.
It was win number five from 28 starts for Shelbyrock’n and the mare has also recorded three seconds and five thirds from the stable of Woodville trainer Shane Brown.
Her last success was in the ITM Interprovincial Championship (1600m) at New Plymouth in August of 2023 but she has rarely run a bad race since.
Jim Small and Lyn Anstis are racing enthusiasts who have been involved in several thoroughbreds in recent years.
One of them was Savvy Dreams, who only won two races but finished third in the Group 1 New Zealand Oaks, second in the Group 2 Lowland Stakes and fourth in both the Group 1 Thorndon Mile and Group 1 Bonecrusher Stakes. The daughter of Savabeel was also placed fourth in the Group 1 South Australian Derby (2500m) in Adelaide and is now the dam of Sol De Otono, a mare Small and Anstis have a five per cent share in and who has been placed three times from the Hastings stable of Guy Lowry and Leah Zydenbos.
Small and Anstis purchased Shelbyrock’n for $3600 as a weanling, from the online auction site Gavelhouse, and she has now won in excess of $122,000 in stakemoney.
The mare is certainly bred to be good as she is out of the Pins mare Joy and from a strong Waikato Stud family. Her grandam is the stakes performed Celia Leigh and she is a full-sister to the well performed Cazuleigh.
Sutherland posts a five-win haul
Former Hawke’s Bay-based Lily Sutherland kicked home the first five-win bag of her career at last Sunday’s Greymouth meeting and is well on the way to securing her second consecutive national apprentice jockeys’ premiership.
The 20-year-old began her race-riding career from the Hastings stable of Vickki Wilson in 2021 before transferring to the Wanganui stable of Kevin Myers last season.
She out rode her claim when kicking home her 141st win at Otaki on Boxing Day but that hasn’t slowed her progress in the slightest, riding winners at New Plymouth and Tauherenikau in the subsequent days before heading south to the West Coast circuit.
She was sent out the favourite for the jockeys’ challenge at last Sunday’s Greymouth meeting and wasted no time getting on the board, winning the first event of the day aboard Havarti for Awapuni trainer Peter Didham.
She saluted aboard the Michael and Matthew Pitman-trained Russian Rosette in the third and also notched up victories with Trauma, Bernardo and Kick On for her employer Kevin Myers.
The latter took out the feature race on the card, the Recreation Hotel Greymouth Cup (2000m), and Sutherland showed her talents by settling the horse into a perfect trailing position. She waited until the home turn to lodge her claim and Kick On pounced on the leaders before racing away for a 3-3/4 length win.
Sutherland’s quintet of winners at Greymouth took her season’s tally to 43 and she added another victory aboard Mad Max at Otaki on Monday to now be just six short of her career-best 52, a total that won her last season’s apprentice premiership.
It also places her in the top four on the national jockeys’ premiership for this season, behind Craig Grylls, Masa Hashizume and Sam Spratt.
Belclare back for rich Ellerslie races
Following a lucrative spring campaign in Sydney, multiple Group 1 winner Belclare has returned to New Zealand in a bid to secure her third successive Group1 NZ Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1600m) crown at Ellerslie on Champions Day in March.
The daughter of Per Incanto was offered at Magic Millions’ Gold Coast National Broodmare sale last year following her second victory in the Breeders’ Stakes but failed to reach her $700,000 reserve.
Owner-breeder David Woodhouse then elected to entrust his mare to the care of expat Kiwi trainer Bjorn Baker in Sydney for a spring campaign, which proved to be a masterstroke.
Belclare was unplaced in her first two starts for Baker, the Group 2 Sheraco Stakes (1200m) and A$1.5 million Alan Brown Stakes (1400m), before earning her biggest pay cheque when taking out the A$2 million Group 2 The Invitation (1400m) at Randwick in October and repeated the result in the Group 2 Hot Danish Stakes (1400m) at Rosehill a fortnight later.
She then travelled to Perth where she finished last in the Group 1 Railway Stakes (1600m), but Woodhouse said nothing went right that day.
“In Perth, I think she got upset in the gates and then she never settled in the race at all,” he said. “She pulled her way to the front and blew out. That was a non-event really.”
Following a spell, Woodhouse made the decision to bring his mare back to New Zealand and return her to the care of Awapuni trainer Lisa Latta, with the aim of trying to defend her crowns in the $600,000 Group 2 Westbury Classic (1400m) at Ellerslie on January 28 and $600,000 NZ Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes (1600m) on March 8, with the $500,000 Gr.1 Otaki-Maori WFA Classic (1600m) at the Auckland venue on February 22 also being identified as a key target.
“There was a heavy track at Rosehill a few weeks back and I just decided that with those three races at Ellerslie, guaranteeing a track that she would handle, I thought it was quite logical to bring her back,” Woodhouse said.
“I would love to win the Breeders’ Stakes for the third time.
“Lisa said she is coming up nicely and she is going to have a trial at Foxton 10 days before the Westbury.”