Double Strike For WS

21 June 2011

WS celebrated an international double in the weekend with farm graduates adding to their accounts in Australia and Asia. Savaging continued his excellent run of form when he was successful on the synthetic track at Geelong while in Singapore the Mark Walker-trained Warspirit was an impressive debut winner at Kranji.

A son of Savabeel, whose 2011 book is already full, Savaging has now won four times including his last two on end. He was a $300,000 purchase by trainer Danny O’Brien from the WS consignment to Karaka in 2008 and is out of the Centaine mare Gio who has produced the stakes winners Crepe De Chine and Arenti. It is also the Gr 1 family of Glamour Puss and Vision And Power.

The Scaredee Cat three-year-old Warspirit was placed in all three of his New Zealand starts for the Cambridge training duo of Tony Pike and Mark Donoghue before he transferred to Walker’s Singapore operation. The gelding, a $48,000 buy from WS’s 2009 Select Sale line-up, is out of the winning O’Reilly mare Lucerne from the family of the Australian Gr 3 winners Laranto (Autumn Classic, Autumn Stakes) and Lusso (Debutante Stakes).

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.