Pins Mare A Cracking Prospect

19 December 2010

Pukekohe trainer Richard Collett is weighing up his black type options with a WS-bred mare he holds in the highest regard. The lightly-raced Pins four-year-old Shantaine produced an outstanding performance to win against Rating 80 company at Awapuni on Saturday to turn her connections thoughts toward much loftier prizes.

“She’s got a big heart and is probably as good as any horse we’ve got in the stable,” Collett said. Given he prepared the Gr 1 New Zealand Oaks runner-up November Rain to win the recent Gr 2 Cal Isuzu Stakes, that emphasises the talent Shantaine possesses. A likely target for the mare could now be the Gr 2 Rich Hill Mile at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.

Shantaine settled toward the tail-end of the field on Saturday and was still lengths off the pace on the turn. However when the field fanned out into the straight, rider Jason Collett asked for a serious effort and the mare stormed down the centre of the track to win going away by an easy length and a-half.

Purchased by Collett for stable clients Bruce and Gerald Shand from WS’s 2008 Premier Sale draft for $280,000, she is out of the winning Centaine mare Centelise from the Gr 1 family of the VRC Derby and Caulfield Guineas winner and successful sire Grosvenor. Shantaine has fashioned the excellent record of three wins and three placings from her seven appearances with the prospect of stakes success to come.

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.

9 July 2026

WS graduate Honour Roll out to add stakes success at Otaki

Waikato Stud will be cheering on one of its promising graduates on Friday when Honour Roll contests the Listed John Turkington Forestry Castletown Stakes (1200m) at Otaki. The WS-bred son of the late Champion sire …