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.
The Corner with Garry Chittick
The writing of my Corner started many years ago, motivated by an irritation that I felt needed scratching. It was never my intention to make my commentary regular; neither did I intend to reinvent the direction of racing administration. It is both disappointing and ironical that what should be a simple, straightforward business provides a regular need for comment.
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Ocean Park’s With Grace seals NZ Cup berth
South Auckland mare With Grace secured her berth in next month’s Gr.3 Martin Collins New Zealand Cup (3200m) at Riccarton when extending her winning sequence to four with victory in the Baker Tilly Staples Rodway 2100 at Te Rapa on Labour Day Monday.
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