Double strike for pins

4 July 2016

WS stalwart Pins produced a winning double in Melbourne yesterday with Pin Your Hopes and Makatiti successful at Caulfield. The former is in career best form for trainers Matthew Ellerton and Simon Zahra with three wins and a second from his last four starts.

Pin Your Hopes ended a two year drought when he won at Cranbourne in May and then scored at Flemington after finishing runner-up at Sandown. “I think the soft tracks have really helped him,” Zahra said. “I think the firmer tracks stopped him and he lost his confidence, but now he’s letting go.”

The John Sadler-trained Makatiti has also been in great touch this preparation with two wins and three placings from five appearances. The three-year-old was purchased out of WS’s 2014 Premier Sale line-up at Karaka for $80,000.

He is a son of the unraced O’Reilly mare Enjoy who is a daughter of the dual stakes winner Playful Fingers. She is a half-sister to the Group One performers Hancock Park ad Clever Zoe.

The Corner with Garry Chittick

It would appear I now have to continue my weekly Corner with the amount of rumblings at the start of our new racing season. I have been around long enough to know we can never please all; my tenure as Chairman of the Racing Board was subjected to as much vitriol as subsequent Boards have had to bear, so what’s different this time, or is it different.

5 August 2026

First foal for Waikato’s Group 1 winner Skew Wiff

Group 1-winning Savabeel mare Skew Wiff (ex Starvoia), known affectionately as ‘Wiffy’, foaled a filly by Super Seth in the early hours of Wednesday, 5 August.