Pins Mare Adds To Melbourne Record

22 March 2012

Epingle was a comfortable winner on the Lakeside course at Sandown yesterday to take her record to two victories and three placings from a handful of starts.

Trained at Cranbourne by Mick Kent for Gilgai Farm, the WS-bred and sold daughter of Pins was a $A160,000 purchase when offered by the Matamata farm at the Sydney Easter Sale in 2009.

She is the only foal to race out of Etoile du Nord, whose five career wins featured the Listed Marton Cup and she was also a Group placegetter in the Championship Stakes, Hawke’s Bay Cup and Manawatu Classic. By Zabeel, she is from the family of promising sire and Gr 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Artie Schiller.

Yesterday’s result would have also been welcomed by leading Sydney trainer John O’Shea. He went to $160,000 to buy Epingle’s half-brother by O’Reilly from WS’s Premier Sale line-up at Karaka earlier this year (see photo left).

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.