Experience accounts for youth

5 December 2013

Veteran Telecom Top Star upstaged his younger rivals at Happy Valley last night for the fourth win of his career. The WS graduate has now won three times in Hong Kong after breaking his maiden as a three-year-old in New Zealand where he raced as Tele Combo.

The son of O’Reilly was an $80,000 yearling at Karaka and is out of the Centaine mare Corsica. She is a half-sister to the stakes winner River Chant (Danasinga) and a three-quarter sister to the dam of the dual Australian black type winner Marquardt.

Corsica was unraced but she has been a good producer and Telecom Top Star’s younger sister Hera promises to continue to add to the family record. In a brief career for trainer Roger James she was won three races, including the Listed Great Northern Foal Stakes, and finished runner-up in the Listed Trevor Eagle Memorial.

The Corner with Garry Chittick

No Corner last week; this week the Annual Thoroughbred Racing Awards night certainly deserves acknowledgment. It is the second of two nights of measurement of Thoroughbred achievements for the year, with the first focussing on our Breeders’ awards.

9 September 2026

Savabeel’s Group 1 daughter Belle Cheval retired

Belle Cheval, by champion sire Savabeel, enjoyed a stellar career: placing in the NZ 1000 Guineas, winning the Almanzor Trophy and Uncle Remus Stakes, finishing second in The Kiwi, then claiming Group 1 glory in Australia’s Vinery Stud Stakes before retiring to broodmare duties.