Icing on the Tauranga cake

17 November 2013

WS’s successful day at Tauranga was capped off when Costume downed fellow farm graduate Etoile Filante in the Rating 75 metric mile. Their quinella followed the earlier success of the No Excuse Needed mare I Do in the open sprint.

Bred and raced by Garry Chittick, Costume is trained by Graeme and Debbie Rogerson and continued her impressive progress with her third win at her 12th appearance. By Savabeel, she is out of the O’Reilly mare Disguised and is from an international family that features the Gr 1 King’s Stand Stakes winner and successful sire Godswalk.

Etoile Filante was bred by the farm with David Williams, who now races the mare out of Peter and Dawn Williams’ stable. The daughter of Pins and Etoile Du Nord has three wins and two placings from her seven raceday appearances.

The Corner with Garry Chittick

The two of you will be aware of my ongoing concern as to the future of our sport. You could argue I have a vested interest; well, I did have, but my interest now is to give the future generations the opportunity my generation had. Now I can tell you, hand on heart, there were many financial thin times. 1975 was my fledgling start with five mares on 130 acres that occasionally flooded with the well-bred, non-race-winning Super Gray.

12 August 2026

Classy Debut Victory For Major Beel’s Brother Savagram

From a pedigree known all too well by the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott stable, 3yo Savabeel colt Savagram (NZ) kicked off his race career in the best possible way, highlighting himself as a potential black-type performer.