WS bred crowned Champion Two-Year-Old of 2024/25

The champions of New Zealand’s 2024-25 season were crowned during the Horse of the Year Awards in Hamilton on Sunday night, with two Waikato Stud-bred horses taking out Champion Two-Year-Old and Champion Three-Year-Old titles.

Super Seth’s daughter La Dorada (NZ) (ex Gold Fever) won Champion Two-Year-Old with 53 of the 60 votes cast.

Trained by Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson of Te Akau and bought from Waikato Stud’s 2024 NZB Karaka Yearling Sale Book 1 draft by David Ellis CNZM (BAFNZ), La Dorada won on debut in November of 2024 before catapulting to stakes class, winning the Gr.2 Eclipse Stakes at start two, taking the RL Karaka Millions at her third start in January where, just two weeks on, she took out the Gr.2 Matamata Breeders’ concluding a season which culminated in a three-and-a-half length win in the Gr.1 Manawatu Sires’.

La Dorada is out of the Savabeel mare Gold Fever, winner of the Gr.2 Matamata Breeders’ Stakes and placed in the Gr.1 Diamond Stakes, La Dorada hails from a strong family. Her half-sister, Gold Rocks, also claimed the Breeders’ Stakes.

Super Seth concluded the 2024/25 racing season as the most successful New Zealand-based stallion ever, having sired four Group 1 winners in his first two racing seasons.

Across Australasia, he is second equal to his broodmare sire Redoute’s Choice, both having sired four Group 1 winners each in their first two racing seasons. Only the late, great Danehill bettered this pair with six.