Savabeel honoured with NZTR Award for Outstanding Global Achievement
Waikato Stud is proud to celebrate the recognition of its late sire Savabeel, who was named recipient of the 2026 NZTR Award for Outstanding Global Achievement at Sunday evening’s New Zealand Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards in Auckland.
Savabeel announced himself as a serious talent early on, claiming back-to-back Group 1 victories as a three-year-old in Australia with wins in the 2004 Spring Champion Stakes and Cox Plate. It was, however, at Waikato Stud that his influence on the breed would be most profoundly felt. Standing as a champion stallion, he sired 36 individual Group 1 winners and 159 stakes winners, with his progeny achieving Group 1 success across Australia and propelling him to the title of Hong Kong’s leading sire by winners in 2018/19.
Savabeel’s dominance at home was equally emphatic, earning him the title of New Zealand’s champion sire on ten occasions, while his progeny amassed an outstanding 16 Horse of the Year equine category awards. This latest honour is a fitting tribute to a stallion whose legacy will continue to shape the breed for generations to come.
The Corner with Garry Chittick
Well, I got a bit behind last week, with Friday slipping by without realising it; hence no Corner. I have said on too many occasions that negative messages are of no help to anyone, and yet there seems so often a reason to be concerned. Clearly, this week the well-constructed Guerin Report on the threatened downgrade of our Group 1 races demands our attention.
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Vale Ohope Wins, Ocean Park’s tough, kind and courageous daughter
Long before her Oaks double, Ohope Wins’ greatest victory belonged to the Waikato Stud staff and Matamata Veterinary Services vets who saved her as a desperately sick foal. Taken far too soon at Caulfield, her remarkable story is theirs too.
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