Super Savabeel dominates proceedings again
Savabeel took centre stage at the New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing Awards with another clean sweep in the stallion division.
The Waikato Stud resident won the Grosvenor Award for a sixth consecutive season and his fifth Dewar and Centaine titles.
No New Zealand based stallion in the modern era comes anywhere close to achieving matching Savabeel’s achievements.
The Grosvenor Award is based on progeny earnings, the Dewar on combined Australian and New Zealand progeny earnings and the Centaine for combined progeny earnings worldwide.
Waikato Stud was also the fore when its home-bred Madison County was a dominant winner of the Champion Three-Year-Old Award.
The Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman-trained son of Pins won all but one of the 59 votes available.
Madison Country claimed the Gr.1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas and the Gr.1 Levin Classic before embarking on an Australia campaign.
He finished fourth in the Gr.1 Randwick Guineas and was then runner-up in the Gr.2 Tulloch Stakes and in the Gr.1 Australian Derby.
Tivaci’s Movie Night steals the show at Newcastle
A sister to the Gr.1 ATC Flight Stakes (1600m) winner Never Been Kissed, the Waikato Stud-bred and raced Movie Night (NZ) was rewarded for her consistency, breaking her maiden with an all-the-way win over 1400m at Newcastle for trainer Tom Charlton.
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Oilman’s stud stake could change course of NZ breeding
Eighteen months ago, Texas oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt walked through the lush Waikato pasture of Matamata’s Balcarres Stud and announced he wanted some just like it for his own.
Today he has-360 acres about a mile down the road which has been transformed from a dairy farm to one of New Zealand’s leading horse and cattle breeding establishments.
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