Ballarat Boomer For WS Sires

13 January 2012

WS posted a winning double in Melbourne yesterday with homebreds Infuse and Attivita flying the Pins flag. The Matamata farm’s enjoyed a red letter day at the Ballarat meeting with the O’Reilly three-year-old Rollerball also successful in just his second appearance for trainer Robert Smerdon.

Infuse was a stylish maiden winner when he returned from a six month spell to romp home over 1600 metres. Prepared by Robert Hickmott for the Williams family, the gelding was bought out of WS’s 2010 Sydney Easter Yearling Sale draft for $A90,000. He is from the Garry Chittick-bred and raced Defensive Play mare Fiaba who won six races and was stakes placed in the Gr 3 Eulogy Stakes and the Listed Winter Classic.

Attivita recorded her third victory from eight starts for trainer Peter Moody when she triumphed over 1400 metres. The four-year-old was a $27,500 purchase at Karaka in 2009 and is out of the Gr 3 placed Kinjite mare Activate. She is also the dam of the multiple winner Jack’s Point.

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.

9 July 2026

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.