Carston chases his third Canterbury Belle Stakes
Matt Markham - Raceform • September 12th, 2025 9:00 AM
Andrew Carston is going back to a tried-and-true formula with his smart filly Miss Ziggy in the NZB Canterbury Belle Stakes on Saturday.
The Riccarton horseman, who has enjoyed a strong start to the new season, has already registered wins in the Listed feature on his home track with Art De Triomphe and Miss Federer. He will attempt to do it for the third time this weekend, with one valuable thing in common.
Carston has turned to the most successful rider for his stable, Kylie Williams, for this week’s assignment with a filly who was good enough to finish third in the Karaka Millions 2YO earlier this year.
“Kylie and I have a good record in the race and it would be great to make it three this year,” Carston told RaceForm.
Williams is, of course, closing in on a milestone of her own with 995 career riding wins next to her name prior to Thursday’s meeting on the synthetic at Riccarton, and a good chunk of those wins in recent years have come from Carston’s stable.
“We go back a long way and have enjoyed good success.”
Miss Ziggy will be second-up for the campaign on Saturday after finishing third behind Belle Du Monde and Cool Aza Rene a fortnight ago, both of whom are rivals again this week. Carston gave Miss Ziggy’s resuming run a solid pass mark.
“I thought it was an okay run without setting the world on fire. She was never going to beat those other two horses over the 1000 metres I don’t think, she tends to get a bit fired up in the open over that short trip.
“The extra 200 metres this week should be ideal for her, but it won’t be any easier because it’s a very good field of three-year-olds.”
After a busy two-year-old campaign that involved a lot of travel up in the North Island, from Trentham to Ellerslie, just being able to map a path closer to home this campaign has excited Carston with the daughter of Brazen Beau.
“It’ll be nice to not have to travel too far. In fact, Ashburton might be as far as we go before November at this stage. She’ll appreciate that too, because her first campaign was a big one.”
Yet to actually win a race, Miss Ziggy has shown all the attributes of being a handy horse in her eight-start career. As well as her cracking third behind La Dorada in the Karaka Millions in January, she also finished second behind Lucy In The Sky on Otaki-Maori WFA Classic Day at Ellerslie in February.
“She did a great job as a two-year-old, and the hope is now that she can press on and improve enough to be competitive as a three-year-old.
“I think she will. She’s definitely taken improvement out of her first-up run and has come forward off the back of it, but she’ll need to keep going forward, because you can’t really hide anywhere in these fillies’ races.”
Over the 1200 metres this week in the $80,000 feature, Carston is hopeful that Williams can get the filly to relax a little more than she did last time.
“She just gets out into a bit of open air and wants to charge sometimes, but I kind of expected that last time. While the other two got away inside the last little bit the other day, I thought she kept fighting really well to the line and it certainly suggested that the 1200 metres will be more suitable.”
Miss Ziggy will be joined at Saturday’s meeting by Mogul, who is also second-up from a spell after finishing fourth at the same meeting two weeks ago.
“I thought he was super, and like Miss Ziggy, he’s really come on since that run. I don’t think he’s a really genuine Rating 75 horse, it can be a little bit tough at times, but he gets in well at the handicaps this week. If he ran as well as he did fresh, he wouldn’t be far away.”
Super Sincere will jump out of a hitout run on the synthetic last time to a strong Rating 65 sprint, looking to recapture some of her three-year-old form from last season.
“She probably didn’t quite let down as well as I would have hoped on the synthetic, but she’ll be better for having had that run. It’s a pretty sharp field this week though, so we’ll need to be better.”
Carston has a strong spring team to step out in the coming weeks. Say Satono was an impressive winner first up late last month and looks set for a good campaign, while Jon Ol Rocco isn’t far away from a public run with a view to the TAB Mile during Cup Week.
Carston was also impressed with Ess Vee Are’s debut for the stable last Sunday and is plotting a path to the New Zealand Cup with the former North Island galloper.
