Chasing a shadow at the Karaka Millions
Dennis Ryan - Raceform • January 29th, 2026 11:51 AM • 7 min read
Chasing a shadow on a racecourse can be a fruitless task, were it not for still significant minor stake-money.
That rang no truer than at Ellerslie’s Karaka Millions meeting on Saturday evening when the new star of New Zealand racing blitzed her rivals to extend her unbeaten record to five from five in the $1.5 million TAB Karaka Millions 3YO.
The shadow of course belongs to Well Written, a medium-sized chestnut filly who might be nothing remarkable physically, but when it’s game on, has no peer. Her athletic power translates to electric acceleration that was never more evident in Matt Cartwright’s confident ride on the $1.20 Karaka Millions favourite as he found a path between runners and cut her loose to streak clear by six lengths.
He Who Dares had pushed Well Written to a long neck when they clashed in the Gr.2 Auckland Guineas a month earlier in what was the filly’s first start since blitzing her rivals in the Gr.1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas in early November. This time she was at full concert pitch, and didn’t it show as she swept by to stamp her age-group superiority.
A lot was riding on the Karaka Millions outcome, but trainer Stephen Marsh described the pre-race pressure as nothing to compare with her previous start. That was the first step in a change of plans to target the Karaka Millions 3YO rather than a sprint on the same programme.
“Leading up to Boxing Day I wasn’t exactly sure where she was at fitness-wise, so it was a relief to see her win,” Marsh recalled. “With that out of the way, I was way more relaxed. Everything had gone to plan, I knew where she was up to, she was right where we wanted her.”
The performance in front of Saturday’s on-course audience along with many other viewers of the most publicised race on the World Pool card led to a discussion as to where Well Written’s ceiling might be and how she compares with past stars.
Mark Walker, as well-versed as any on the individual merits of elite horses, went as far back as the early days of his career to draw a line.
“She’s something else that filly of Marshy’s, she might even be the next Sunline,” he commented minutes after having to play second fiddle with the two closest finishers behind Well Written.
For their part, the connections of racing’s newest star are focusing on her next step to potential greatness, the $4 million NZB Kiwi on Champions Day back at Ellerslie on March 7. She’s already at the same near unbackable $1.20 odds as last Saturday, with Gr.1 Caulfield Guineas runner-up Planet Red at $5 and Saturday’s Gr.3 Almanzor Trophy winner Belle Cheval the only other in single figures at $8.
“She won’t race again before the Kiwi,” Marsh added. “The distance is slightly less and she won’t need to do anything more than maybe an exhibition gallop back at Ellerslie, most probably at the Avondale Cup meeting two weeks before. If we felt we really had to, if there’s a Group and Listed trial somewhere she could run in.”
The team behind Yulong Investments, who secured a 50 percent share in Well Written before the New Zealand 1000 Guineas, were there in force to witness the pride and joy of their increasing local presence, with the exception of principal Mr Yuesheng Zhang.
“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Mr Zhang yet, but I’m certainly looking forward to the opportunity,” Marsh said. “There was a chance he was going to make it, however I understand there was a complication with flights back to China.
“The word is that he’s coming out for the Kiwi, so – no pressure – I look forward to that.”
Amongst those in the Yulong entourage at Ellerslie were expats Sam Fairgray and Harry King. Fairgray, who cut his teeth in breeding at Ra Ora Stud, is Yulong’s chief operating officer, while King, who grew up on his family’s Brighthill Farm, is head of sales and nominations.
King played a significant part in Well Written’s path to New Zealand, having pointed his Matamata-based brother Benji in the filly’s direction when she was offered for sale as a weanling. The latter secured the daughter of Yulong stallion Written Tycoon for A$35,000 with the ultimate goal of adding her to his fledgling training operation, only for a broken leg he suffered in a training track accident forcing him to cash her up.
That’s when close Marsh Racing associate Dylan Johnson spotted her in the NZB National Online Yearling Sale on the Gavelhouse auction platform and she changed hands for what now rates as one of the great bargains at $80,000, with stake-earnings already topping $1.4 million and so much more to come.
What her current campaign might look like beyond the NZB Kiwi remains undecided, Marsh pointing to a preparation that began in early August and reluctance in asking too much of her.
“She has come a long way from those spring trials and seeing her run 1:35 flat for the 1600 makes you think it mightn’t be such a good idea to take her, say, to Sydney in the autumn, when the tracks can be wet. A race like the Golden Eagle in the spring might be a more suitable target, but that’s all for later, we’ll concentrate for now on her next race.”
While Marsh was claiming his first Karaka Millions 3YO to go with his 2013 and 2024 Karaka Million 2YO wins with Ruud Awakening and Velocious (also a chestnut by Written Tycoon), there was another familiar ring to the 2026 edition of the Karaka Millions 2YO.
For the third time in the past decade and half, the winning trainer was Sunshine Coast-based Queenslander Liam Birchley, who claimed his first Ellerslie win in 2010 with Karaka graduate Sister Havana and again with Hardline in 2015.
Birchley’s buying approach puts the emphasis on value, with no better example the filly who became his third Karaka Millions 2YO winner, Dream Roca, who cost him just $75,000 at last year’s National Sale. His second purchase Vanzadee, who finished eighth and like her stablemate the winner of one of her two lead-up races, was even cheaper at $26,000.
Their journey back to Auckland was anything but straightforward, beginning with a road trip down to Sydney, then a delayed flight and eventual arrival followed by a half-hour float ride to Ellerslie for a stroll around the course proper at the Tuesday morning gallops.
They were stabled with Cambridge trainer Lauren Brennan for the remainder of the week and in the pre-race parade certainly looked none the worse for their extensive travel, something obviously underlined by Dream Roca’s dogged finish under Ben Thompson to nail the rank outsider Magill in the final two bounds. Hastings visitor Magill had set the pace from his inside gate, while Dream Roca also made best use of her good draw to trail on the fence with Torture, who had jumped from gate five, just outside her.
Dream Roca is raced by a partnership that includes former Ellerslie CEO Cameron George and Hallmark Stud’s Mark Baker, who has been a close friend of Birchley since the pair were young grooms at Cambridge’s Trelawney Stud.
Birchley selected the El Roca filly at last year’s National Yearling Sale, by his admission attracted by her strong physique ahead of pedigree factors. It still bears pointing out that Dream Roca is a Westbury Stud product through and through, being out of a Redwood mare and tracing to the stakes-winning Belloto mare Bislotto, who is also the ancestress of the Westbury-bred Group One winners Sofia Rosa and Mascarpone.
The Group One race on Saturday’s programme, the Sistema Railway, proved a welcome homecoming of another sort when South Island-born and reared apprentice jockey Logan Bates landed a first elite win for himself and his employer, Victorian trainer Cindy Alderson.
Bates is the son of former South Island jockey Jamie Bates and the still active Kylie Williams, who joined the 1,000-win club last year. Their son was at something of a loose end in his late teens when he joined his father as a trackwork rider at Alderson’s Cranbourne base. That led to him signing up with the Racing Victoria apprentice jockey development programme and is now one of the state’s emerging riders.
A trip home to ride at the New Zealand Cup carnival last November produced a winning double and his first Ellerslie experience proved even more fruitful when he rode another double from just two rides. That began in Saturday’s opening event on the Margaret Falconer-trained and owned Moschino, appropriately so given Bates’s background in the race named after the late Jo Giles. Under her maiden name Hales, she made history as the first female jockey licensed in New Zealand to ride in a race at Waimate in July 1978, but sadly a life filled with sporting and professional achievements ended at age 60 in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
The obvious highlight of 24-year-old Bates’s Ellerslie appearance was his Railway victory for his employer on Alderson’s home-bred seven-year-old Jigsaw, who led a Victorian quinella over the Hayes brothers’ Arkansaw Kid.
Although Jigsaw was her first New Zealand starter, Alderson has had a long affinity with this country, mainly through her father, retired trainer Colin Alderson who was a long-time associate of fellow retired octogenarian Alan Jones, the husband of another pioneer in female jockey ranks, Linda Jones.
More recently, Alderson developed ties with New Zealand trainer Lisa Anderson, whose 2008 stakes-winning racemare Loaded Command is the granddam of Jigsaw. Loaded Command produced the Lonhro mare Demandz, who Anderson won twice with before transferring her to the Alderson stable to win another race and then becoming the dam of the Railway hero.
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