Decorah digs deep for cup success

3 January 2016

Pins mare Decorah was a brave and deserved winner of the Gr 3 City of Auckland Cup at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day. The six-year-old was in front at the top of the straight and she answered every call from Opie Bosson for the seventh win of her career.

Trained by Murray Baker and Andrew Forsman, she went into the feature staying event off the back of her third placing under 60kg in the Gr 3 Waikato Cup. “She had been working very well and she doesn’t mind a bit of rain,” Baker said. “I’ve got a lot of admiration for her – she’s only small, but she’s got a big heart.”

Decorah is nominated for the Gr 1 Auckland Cup, but Baker said the mare’s future may be determined by the handicapper. “She does go very well at Ellerslie and we’ll have to see what sort of weight she’ll get.”

The Corner with Garry Chittick

I keep on proposing my retirement from the burden of a weekly Corner. I make the excuse it is hard to be credible, hard to let the two of you know about anything in our sport that hasn’t been covered before.

27 October 2025

WS-bred On The Lash scores at Sha Tin

Twenty-four hours following the final WS Cox Plate meeting run on the Moonee Valley track of old before it shuts for two years to make way for a new precinct, the race’s 2004 winner, Savabeel, continued his roll of runners, and this time it was via five-year-old On The Lash (ex Candelabra) at Sha Tin.