Sweeney to re-join training ranks.
A familiar name will be returning to the training ranks for the start of the new season.
Debbie Sweeney, wife of jockey Mark, will renew her partnership with father Graeme Sanders from August 1 after a seven year hiatus.
They previously trained together for nine years, during which time they produced 219 winners, until Sweeney stepped aside in 2007 to concentrate on a young family and her brother Mark joined his father for six seasons.
Meanwhile, Michael Roustoby, who has been in partnership with Ann Herbert, will be training with his partner Jennifer McIlroy from the beginning of the new term.
Latta juveniles close to return
Group One performer Platinum Balos is set for a return to training with Awapuni trainer Lisa Latta next week.
The Gr.1 Diamond Stakes placegetter, who was second in the Gr.2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes at Trentham and fourth in the Gr.2 Matamata Breeders Stakes, had surgery to remove bone chips from a knee after inexplicably failing in the Gr.1 Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes at Awapuni in March.
Another of Latta's stakes-performed two-year-olds of this season, Jackofall, is further advanced in his preparation, galloping for the first time at Awapuni on Thursday.
Latta said the Listed Murdoch Newell Stakes winner and Listed Wellesley Stakes runner-up would trial next month before chasing feature three-year-old spoils this spring.
Guineas target for Merion
Michael Moroney has pencilled in next month’s Listed Mitchell McKenzie Stakes as the starting point for Merion in the spring.
The Moonee Valley event will be run over 1200 metres and will be used by Moroney to bring the unbeaten son of O’Reilly closer to his main target of the Gr.1 Caulfield Guineas.
“He looks a good horse in the making and he has come back very well,” he said.
Merion won on debut at Bendigo in March and then went straight to town for an impressive victory in the Listed $120,000 Anzac Day Stakes (1410m) at Flemington on April 25.
Top mares vie for title
Group One-producing dams Iguazu’s Girl (mother of Sacred Falls), Stareel (Dundeel) and Winning Spree (Silent Achiever) are the finalists in the broodmare division of the New Zealand Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards.
Also announced are the Breeder of the Year contenders Joanne and Murray Andersen (Dundeel), Garry Chittick/Waikato Stud (Sacred Falls, Costume, Hera, Diademe), Kevin Hickman (Silent Achiever and Vespa) and Little Avondale Stud/Sam and Catriona Williams (Viadana and Xanadu).
The Jockey of the Year finalists are Matt Cameron, Mark Du Plessis and Johnathan Parkes, with the Trainer of the Year list comprising Lisa Latta, Kevin Myers and the Tony Pike/Mark Donoghue partnership.
The Owner of the Year will be decided between Easdon No 4 Racing Syndicate (Viadana), Kevin Hickman (Silent Achiever, Sir Elmo and Vaporetto), Monovale Holdings (Puccini and Flying Orca) and Sir Peter Vela (Atacama, Mahanadi, Revolutionary and Ebullient).
Cox Plate for Criterion
Sydney won’t be seeing much of rising four-year-old Criterion this spring, with the David Payne-trained galloper set to resume in the Warwick Stakes (1400m) at Randwick in late August before heading south to Melbourne.
The New Zealand-owned and bred ATC Derby winner finished third in a Rosehill barrier trial this week as he continues his preparation aimed toward the Gr.1 Cox Plate (2040m) on October 25th.
Back to winning form
Accomplished performer Back In Black opened his hurdling account at Awapuni on Thursday in his run over fences.
A winner of nine races on the flat and placed in a Gr.3 Geelong Cup and a Listed Wanganui Cup, he had finished in the money in his previous jumping outings for part-owner and trainer John Steffert.
Back In Black was ridden by Michael Mitchell and after racing close the pace they proved too strong in the run in for Gargarin with Wee Biskit a distant third.
Last chance to enter for Pearl Series
Entries for the NZB Insurance Pearl Series close on July 31.
The series, currently in its second season, is a bonus scheme offers up to $2.8 million in additional stakes money and $2.6 million in bonuses throughout New Zealand.
Designed to support fillies and mares racing in New Zealand the Pearl Series is run over three years across 215 individual races, offering bonuses to entrants in their two-year-old, three-year-old and four-year-old seasons.
Entries are open to all yearling fillies with an additional $100,000 bonus available to if the filly is also insured with NZB Insurance.
Indonesian Racing going back to the future
Indonesian racing is looking to New Zealand thoroughbreds to help return the industry to its former glory.
The Indonesian racing and breeding industry has slowly declined since gambling was outlawed in the archipelago in the early 1970s, resulting in the number of thoroughbred broodmares falling from 500 to only 50, yet recent success of Kiwi-bred horses may be the turning point.
New Zealand-bred stallion Tuscaloosa made an impact at this year’s Indonesian Derby (2000m), the industry’s most prestigious race, with his progeny landing the quinella in the day's feature race.
Next season will only increase New Zealand’s influence as the Stavinsky son Keeninsky will have his first runners at Kuda Pordasi, Indonesia’s only racetrack.
"It's a beautiful racecourse located in Jakarta, with a golf course and a lake in the centre," New Zealand Bloodstock's Asia Representative Michael Kneebone said.
"I was on track for the Derby last weekend, and there was a very healthy crowd in attendance.
"Racing takes place every month and is popular with the locals and they race on a sand track. Mr Iman Hertano of Eclipse Stud Farm has been instrumental in the revival of racing in the region," Kneebone added.
Indonesian buyers have been broadened their search for horses and were active at the New Zealand Bloodstock breeding sale in May.
