Bonny mare set for stradbroke

4 June 2017

Ever-improving mare Bonny O’Reilly has earned herself a possible crack at a Group One feature in Queensland. The WS-bred and sold mare stretched her unbeaten run to five today when she was successful at Doomben to set herself up for a tilt at the next Saturday’s $A1.5 million Stradbroke Handicap.

The O’Reilly mare jumped from an inside gate to track the pace and once the gap presented itself in the straight she was through and on her way. “She’s obviously going really well and when I saw the leader was under a bit of pressure and wobbled out I was able to come through,” rider Jason Collett said.

Bonny O’Reilly has now won seven of her nine starts from Bjorn Baker’s Warwick Farm stable. Purchased for $100,000 out of WS’s 2014 Premier Sale draft to Karaka, Bonny O’Reilly is from the Pins mare Pretty, who is a half-sister to the Group One winners Glamour Puss and Vision And Power.

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.