Family success rolling into new season for Bell
Jess de Lautour • July 28th, 2025 2:32 PM • 4 min read
John Bell’s run of success with the family of star mare Fleur de Lune continued at Te Aroha on Sunday, with close relation Zenith delivering on debut.
A son of Time Test, Zenith was the second foal out of Reine de Lune, a daughter of the Group One-winning Stravinsky mare. Reine de Lune was herself unraced, but her younger brother Twain is right in the conversation for the upcoming spring features, having won six of his nine starts.
Similarly to Twain, Zenith has been carefully handled by Bell, starting his career as a late three-year-old with a tidy trial at Waipa before taking on the Great New Zealand Carnival 19-21 September 1150.
Zenith started the second-elect behind Renaissa and the pair were first out of the barriers, with the former showing enough early speed to cross and eventually take up the pacemaking role. He was challenged near the home turn by Apollo Warrior, but after showing a decent kick at the top of the straight, Zenith was clear and cruised down to the line, albeit showing his inexperience when shying at the winning post.
Renaissa closed gamely down the outside to fill second position, with Crackbones also doing his best work late in a promising debut effort.
Bell has given Zenith the time he needed to mature before stepping out on raceday and was pleased to see his patience pay off.
“He’s a quality horse, he’s taken a bit of time to mature but he’s got a lovely pedigree and a wonderful stride,” Bell said.
“I expected him to be just outside the leader with Craig allowing him to do what he needed to do, but he took him to the front and away he went. He was still a bit green and shied at the winning post, so he’s still got a lot of improvement to come.”
While he handled the heavy surface on Sunday, Bell expects Zenith to appreciate better ground when that is on offer.
“I’ve had this horse since he was a baby, we’ve just taken our time with him,” he said. “We knew he could gallop, but we waited until he was ready to take the pressure that we went to the trials.
“He had no pressure whatsoever at Waipa and went nicely, so based on that, and what he’s shown us on the training track, we hoped to see him go well at Te Aroha.
“We’ll have a look for another race, he was down on the inside where no one had been in the jumps races, so he handled it. But, he’s such a beautiful moving horse, he’ll go better on a better surface I would imagine.”
Bell was in the winner’s circle earlier in the week on the Cambridge Synthetic, with promising galloper Spanish Lad taking a comprehensive victory in the Rating 77 event over 1550m.
“He’s another beautiful animal, he’ll be nominated tomorrow (Tuesday) for the $100,000 race on the synthetic, and Craig Grylls has accepted that ride,” Bell said. “We’ll concentrate on that with him.
“All of these horses are owned by Elizabeth Martin and Peter Barton, they’ve got lovely pedigrees and are related in one way or another.”
A son of Shocking, Spanish Lad is out of a Group One-performing mare in Celebrity Miss.
Twain’s progression towards the Gr.2 Foxbridge Plate (1200m) on August 23 continued at Te Rapa on Saturday, stepping out in an exhibition gallop under Vinnie Colgan. To the delight of Bell, Colgan had plenty of praise for the rising five-year-old.
“He breezed up after race two with Vinnie Colgan on, and Vinnie said that he hasn’t ridden a horse that has given him that feel in quite a long time,” Bell said. “He was pretty excited.
“He followed about 100m behind another horse which helped, and he just sat on him, he went magic.
“He’ll race in a fortnight over 1200m, then a fortnight after that, he’ll go to the Foxbridge. We’ve got our early nominations in for a few races, and when the nominations and weights come out, we’ll decide whether to go there.” – LOVERACING.NZ News Desk
