Milestones for both Ray Green and Maurice McKendry, two good three-year-olds on the move, and a dog naming competition all feature in this week’s News Briefs.
Double whammy in win
Sugar Ray Lincoln produced two milestones with his win at Alexandra Park last Friday. The victory gave Ray Green 500 training successes and was driving win number 3400 for Maurice McKendry. Maurie Mac, as he’s known, has had a quieter than usual year with just eight wins in 2024. He is the country’s second most successful driver ever, 285 wins behind Tony Herlihy (3685). Ricky May is third on 3133. This year six-time champion Blair Orange leads the drivers’ premiership on 122, 24 clear of John Dunn, while the Dunns are racing away with the trainers’ premiership on 145, 29 ahead of Steve and Amanda Telfer and Sam Thornley (47) is nine clear of Carter Dalgety in the junior drivers.
To see more on Ray Green’s milestone click here
Dex tops $12m in stakes
Dexter Dunn has extended his lead as the highest-earner driver in North America. The 10-time Kiwi champion has now earned in excess of $12.2m in stakes to be clear leader of Yannick Gingras ($11.8m). Dunn has had 261 wins in 2024 including four at Kentucky’s famous Red Mile over the weekend. Among his winners was Mirage Hanover who won the Tattersalls Pace in 1:46.6. Dunn is on course to be named US Driver of the year for the fifth time.
Cullen adds to his firepower
Hayden Cullen’s West Melton stables have been bolstered by the arrival of two gun three-year-olds. Both Harrison John and Hadron Collider have been transferred from the country’s leading trainer Robert and Jenna Dunn’s barn at Woodend. Harrison John has won five from 14, his latest win coming at Addington on September 27. On that occasion Harrison John beat Cullen’s top three-year-old We Walk By Faith who was third, with Hadron Collider fourth. Cullen is building a quality team and has 15 wins in 2024 including two quinellas from his only four runners at Addington last month with Winelight and General Jen and Justcallmemiki and Wish Me Luck.
Volstead three-year-olds keep winning
How’s this for two winning streaks by sire of the moment Volstead? The two three-year-olds starred at Melton on Saturday night with the New Zealand-bound Keayang Zahra making it eight wins from eight starts and Derek the Jet making it nine from nine. Keayang Zahara won the $50,000 Aldebaran Park Need for Speed Princess Final and will now head across the Tasman to be in the $500,000 THE ASCENT as part of the Show Day twilight meeting at Addington on Friday, November 15. Derek The Jet’s earnings exceeded $200,000 with his ninth win in a row. His dam Cyclone Jeter was an eight race winner for New Zealand owner Aaron Lowe. Under his moniker The Pukekohe Punter he is set to start his own horse Cyclone Zion W in THE ASCENT against Keayang Zahara.
Cambridge to mark Rural Women’s day
Cambridge Raceway will celebrate International Rural Women’s Day on Tuesday, October 15. Tickets for the function, including a food and wine package, cost $75 with $5 per ticket going to the Rural Support Trust. Doors open at 4.00pm, with the eight race programme expected to get underway half an hour later.
For more information click here
Open day at Matty’s
The Matthew Williamson racing stables are holding their first ever open day at Oamaru Racecourse this Saturday. The objective is for the stable’s owners to get a close up look at the operation as well as meet staff and celebrate some of the successes so far this year. So far Williamson has trained 33 winners, well in excess of his previous season’s best of 18 in 2023. He has 80 career wins since starting out in 2020. He has also driven 1208 winners since his win with Springfield Tiz as a junior driver at Invercargill in 2008.
Phelia Pockets winning name
Maxine Mathews has won the Blue September “name a greyhound” competition. For $10 people could submit a race name for a dog that Dan Roberts will train. The prize is 10% of its lifetime earnings when it gets first, second or third. The dog (Ophelia Allen – Good Odds Harada) is seven months old. The winning name submitted by Maxine Mathews was Phelia Pockets. It’s the second time the raffle has been held. All proceeds from the competition went to the New Zealand Prostate Cancer Foundation, with HRNZ raising just over $40,000 for the cause this year.
Gavelhouse auction closes tonight
A week or so after being sold, Imperial Command will do his future racing in Australia. The three-year-old raced 48 times for owner-breeder-trainer-driver Alan Clark in this country for two wins at Addington and seven placings and stakes of nearly $34K. He was sold on gavelhouse for $21,000. The latest gavelhouse auction is on now with nine horses up for sale including Its Electrifying. The Captaintreacherous two-year-old has won one from five starts for Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan. At last look he had reached his reserve and was at $20,000.
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