Millionaire status beckons top mare

24 December 2015

Durable mare Soriano will join an elite club if she can win the Gr.1 Zabeel Classic for a second time.

The six-year-old will take her stake earnings beyond $1 million if she successfully defends her title in the Ellerslie feature on Boxing Day.

Soriano is in the twilight of her career – she is in foal to Pins – with upcoming starts in the Gr.1 Thorndon Mile at Trentham and the Gr.1 Herbie Dyke Stakes at Te Rapa to complete her racing days.

Sav’s final resting place

“I’ve got a couple of very special bottles of wine that I’ve had for a number of years, and usually they would have been opened on a celebration, but I thought it was very pertinent, and well, it was a celebration, it was a celebration of his life,” Mark Chittick told The Straight.

19 June 2026

Savabeel: 2001—2026

Savabeel walked through our gates in 2005 and never stopped giving. Twenty-one years on, we said goodbye to our old friend, a horse who didn’t just shape a breeding industry, he defined one. There will never be another quite like him. Rest easy, Sav.