Couples Retreat goes back-to-back for Archibalds
Super Seth’s winners keep on coming, and this time it was the Annabel and Rob Archibald Couples Retreat who won by a definitive two lengths at Kembla Grange on Saturday, 25 October.
Allocated 59.5kg for the race and carrying 58kg with Mollie Fitzgerald’s 1.5kg claim, the pair jumped from barrier five in the eight-horse field, sat and strode away 100m from home, saluting comfortably over the 1000m journey.
Bred by Waikato Stud, she was bought for $280,000 by Mitchell Bloodstock (FBAA) and Annabel Neasham Racing at the 2023 NZB Karaka Yearling Sale Book 1 and from just nine starts has knocked together a record of three wins and three placings.
Out of the Savabeel mare Date Night, the four-year-old mare is her third foal – she has an Ardrossan yearling colt and foaled a colt by Super Seth this season.
Super Seth became the only New Zealand-based sire, ever, to record four Group 1 winners in his progeny’s first two racing seasons with four: Feroce, Linebacker, La Dorada and Maison Louis.
Across Australasia, only Danehill bettered this record (four) and he equalled his broodmare sire Redoute’s Choice with four.
Cornflower Blue juvenile goes two-from-two
Déjà vu struck at Riccarton as Out Of The Blue, a $60,000 Karaka purchase for David Ellis CNZM, surged home under Opie Bosson to score for Te Akau in the tangerine, another triumph for Waikato Stud breeding.
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The Corner with Garry Chittick
The impact of an individual horse on our sport can have significant and lasting results. My Corner has, by and large, shied away from marketing Waikato Stud; however, O’Reilly is very special to us, and the performance of his grandson has prompted me to remind the two of you why I so often include him in my ramblings on the male effect on our industry.
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