Etoile Filante Back in Style

25 March 2013

Pins filly Etoile Filante kept her unbeaten record intact when she returned from a break in top style at Pukekohe Park this last Wednesday. A winner on the course before Christmas and a subsequent let-up, she had warmed up her for resuming run with a trial outing.

Bred by WS with David Williams, who races the three-year-old, Etoile Filante is out of the stakes winning Zabeel mare Etoile du Nord (Listed Marton Cup). Her only offspring to Karaka realised $160,000 last year when Sydney trainer John O’Shea bought her O’Reilly colt from WS’s Premier Sale consignment.

Etoile Fialnte is prepared at Byerley Park by Peter and Dawn Williams and continued the couple’s recent run of success with WS graduates. They also prpeare the unbeaten O’Reilly-Glamour Puss filly for the Chittick family.

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.