Isabell Roddick, a prominent figure in New Zealand thoroughbred circles for many years, celebrated her 80th birthday recently and she and husband Graham are still keenly involved in an industry that has been their livelihood.
Roddick is best known as the breeder and initial owner of the champion Rough Habit but she is also the breeder of a number of other top performers including the Group 1 winners Cinder Bella and Addictive Habit, multiple black type winner Citi Habit, last season’s Group 2 Lowland Stakes winner Ultimate Habit, top jumper Gold Jet and black type winners Branson and Royal George.
She is the perfect example that it does not necessarily cost a lot of money to be a successful thoroughbred breeder and owner as every one of those major winners came from humble beginnings, with hardly a drop of blue-blood pumping through their veins.
Roddick bred Rough Habit out of the nondescript Ashabit mare Certain Habit and owned the son of Roughcast for his first three wins before he was sold and went on to stardom.
Trained by New Plymouth’s John Wheeler, Rough Habit recorded a total of 29 wins, 16 seconds and seven thirds and amassed more than $5million in stake earnings.
Eleven of his victories were at Group 1 level including three Doomben Cups, two Stradbroke Handicaps, a Queensland Derby and a Caulfield Stakes.
Isabell Roddick has been involved with horses all her life, progressing from pony club as a youngster to owning and breeding her own thoroughbreds.
She lived in and around Wellington for the early part of her life, where her father was a farrier by trade.
“I was brought up on a diet of horses,” she later recalled.
“I worked for Wrightsons and bought my first horse, First Fancy, in 1967.”
From First Fancy, who cost her next to nothing, she bred Charlotte Rhodes who left two foals but only one of them lived and that was Certain Habit.
Rough Habit was the second foal out of Certain Habit, who produced 11 foals in total and six of them were successful on the racetrack.
Addictive Habit, who won the 2015 running of the Group 1 Livamol Classic at Hastings and back-to-back wins in the Group 2 Couplands Mile at Riccarton, was by an unfashionable sire in Colombia out of a half-sister to Rough Habit while Citi Habit, who won the Group 3 Chairman' s Handicap in Brisbane and finished second in the Group 1 Brisbane Cup, was by another uncommercial sire in Citidancer out of Certain Habit.
The dam of Cinder Bella, whose two Group 1 wins included the Kelt Capital Stakes at Hastings, cost Roddick $1200 to buy and the stallion fee to mate that mare with the sire Victory Dance was $3000. Cinder Bella was the resultant foal.
Certain Habit died on May 15, 2004, just a couple of hours before Gold Jet, bred and part-owned by the Roddicks, won his first Waikato Steeplechase at Te Rapa.
The Jetball gelding won the race again the following year and, in between times, he also took out the prestigious Hawke’s Bay Steeplechase.
Gold Jet won 10 races and more than $130,000 in stakemoney and was another rags to riches story for Isabell.
She had the last laugh after many people, including husband Graham, scorned her for buying Gold Jet’s dam, Rhine Goddess, for $250 at a mixed bloodstock sale.
It has not always been plain sailing for the Roddicks over the years and they have certainly had more than their fair share of ups and downs. But their endurance and passion for the thoroughbred industry has shone through even in trying times.
They have stood stallions at stud, the most notable being Virginia Privateer.
He left numerous winners but also has the distinction of being the first New Zealand thoroughbred stallion to be kidnapped.
The stallion was taken from the Roddicks Montana Lodge Stud in a night time raid and ended up in the Waikato. A lengthy legal battle ensued before the horse was finally returned to the Roddicks.
The latest big race winner bred and part-owned by Isabell Roddick is Ultimate Habit, who took out the Group 2 $175,000 Lowland Stakes (2100m) in January of this year.
The daughter of Embellish is lucky to be alive after she was among several horses that had to swim for their lives when Cyclone Gabrielle devastated the Roddicks property, near Puketapu, in February 2023.
The Roddicks’ property was quickly inundated with deep flood waters, a raging torrent running through their paddocks that demolished buildings and fences.
Those paddocks housed three broodmares, three foals and two two-year-olds who were quickly under threat of being submerged and swept away.
One of those foals was Ultimate Habit, a filly by Embellish out of the Bachelor Duke mare Queens Habit, who survived the ordeal by sheer guts and with the help of the Roddicks’ close neighbour, Reece Roberts.
“Reece went in with his kayak and rounded the horses up and got them to swim over the broken fences and back to dry land,” Isabell later recalled.
The horses managed to get to a hill section, where they stayed for several days, while the Roddicks were left with a lake surrounding their house.
“We couldn’t go anywhere,” Isabell recalled.
“I remember, at one stage, looking out the window and thinking we have lost the lot, all the horses and the property.”
When the floodwaters subsided enough, the Roddicks then had to find agistment facilities for their horses and Isabell said they would be forever grateful to their good friend Roz Rowe, who offered them a paddock where all the horses stayed for the next three months.
The Embellish filly was then sent to a northern property for 10 months before New Plymouth trainer Robbie Patterson took her into his stable.
Ultimate Habit was still a maiden and having only her fourth start when she lined up in the Lowland Stakes and scored a decisive length win.
She is now back in work with Patterson and finished fourth in a 1000m trial at Foxton on Wednesday of last week.
When the Roddicks were forced to remove all of their bloodstock from their flooded property, they sent Ultimate Habit’s dam, Queens Habit, to Hawke’s Bay-based Okawa Stud where she was mated with Rock ‘N’ Pop.
The resultant foal is a filly so they now have a two-year-old half-sister to Ultimate Habit coming on.
Further operation for Hercock
Top Hawke’s Bay jockey Kate Hercock was to undergo another operation on her broken ankle last Wednesday as she continues to battle back to full fitness.
Hercock broke her right ankle when she was dislodged from Idyllic in a two-horse fall mid-way through a 1200m race at Woodville on April 29 and has been sidelined ever since.
During her time out, after an initial operation, she decided to take an overseas holiday hoping that the ankle would mend.
But, when spoken to at the Hastings jumpouts on Monday, she said the ankle was still not right and needed another operation.
She said she has been back riding trackwork but is limited to what she can do.
Hercock was told that she needed further arthroscopic surgery and, if there was enough cartilage left in the ankle, they are hopeful of being able to knit everything together and she could get back to race-riding.
“But if there isn’t then they will probably have to put screws in the ankle to keep it together and that will probably be the end for me,” she said.
Hercock has chalked up 476 wins, with 13 of those victories in Group or Listed events.
She kicked home 44 wins in the racing season just completed, placing her in the top 20 on the National Jockeys’ Premiership.
She also recorded her best ever season in the saddle in 2024-25, with 57 wins.
Farr bows out as a race rider
A couple of weeks ago, jumps jockey Emily Farr elected to call time on her riding career and circled the Grand National Festival of Racing at Riccarton as her swansong, but she didn’t get the fairytale ending she was hoping for.
On the opening day of the carnival she was runner-up in the Koral Steeplechase (4250m) aboard the Kevin Myers-trained Prince Turbo, and she was looking forward to trying to turn the tables on winner Lord Spencer in the Grand National Steeplechase (5600m) last Saturday, but she didn’t get that opportunity.
Farr’s mount Sir Mikki fell near the 800m in the opening race of the day, the 0-1 Win Hurdle event (3100m), and she suffered a concussion. She was transferred to Christchurch Hospital for observation, ruling her out of riding for the rest of the meeting.
“I am disappointed that it ended the way it did, but things happen, and it’s jumps racing after all,” she said. “I would love to have ended on a better note, but you have to make a decision and put a line in the sand. I did that before I went out on Saturday and I have just followed through with the decision.
Farr, 35, said the decision to retire had been weighing on her mind for some time, and it was made easier after Never Look Back, who she had ridden to victory in last year’s Hawke’s Bay Hurdles (3000m) and this year’s Manawatu Steeplechase (4000m), was ruled out for the remainder of the season.
In a career spanning more than 15 years, Farr has won 108 races in New Zealand and several others in Australia, with Gobstopper’s victory in the Brendan Drechsler Hurdle (3500m) there a particular highlight.
Now living in Otaki with her partner, Johno Benner, Farr said she is loving the quieter lifestyle on the Kapiti Coast, and she is now looking forward to letting her body recover and concentrate on other areas of her life.