Horse of the Year Contenders: Another powerful two-year-old team for Te Akau
Richard Edmunds - Raceform • June 26th, 2025 5:30 PM • 5 min read
With the finalists for the 2024-25 New Zealand Thoroughbred Horse of the Year Awards set to be revealed later in the winter, RaceForm is kicking off our annual review of some of the standout performers in each category – starting with the two-year-olds.
Te Akau Racing has dominated two-year-old racing in New Zealand in the last decade, winning this award in seven of the last eight seasons with Melody Belle (2016-17), Avantage (2017-18), Yourdeel (2018-19), Cool Aza Beel (2019-20), Sword Of State (2020-21), Maven Belle (2021-22) and Tokyo Tycoon (2022-23). The ‘tangerine army’ holds a strong hand again this time around, with Group One-winning stablemates Return To Conquer and La Dorada both holding strong credentials.
Between them, Return To Conquer and La Dorada lined up in nine races this season and recorded eight wins and a second placing. They combined to win two Group Ones, a Group Two, two Group Threes and two Listed races, earning more than $1.5 million for their syndicates.
There was always going to be plenty of hype around Return To Conquer, a blue-blooded Snitzel colt who was bought by David Ellis for A$1.3 million as a yearling on the Gold Coast. He lived up to those expectations and then some, taking an unbeaten record through four starts as a two-year-old – all of them at stakes level.
Return To Conquer made his debut in the Listed Counties Challenge Stakes at Pukekohe on November 23, where his impressive trial form earned him $1.20 favouritism. He did not disappoint, leading all the way and exploding clear in the straight to win by two and a half lengths. The distant third placegetter Vega For Luck would go on to run second in the Karaka Millions 2YO.
Remaining at that red-hot $1.20 quote, Return To Conquer duly delivered another two black-type successes in February’s Gr. 3 Colin Jillings Classic at Ellerslie and Gr. 3 Matamata Slipper.
Trainers Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson stepped him up on to the big stage for his season finale, the Gr. 1 Sistema Stakes on Champions Day at Ellerslie on March 8. He was one of the hottest favourites of the day at $1.70, and he withstood a determined late challenge from $41 longshot Landlock to score by a head. He added to a stellar record in the race for the late, great Australian stallion Snitzel, who sired two previous Sistema winners with Summer Passage (2017) and Sword Of State (2021).
Return To Conquer’s four-start, four-win season banked $534,750 for the Te Akau 2024 Stallion Breeding Syndicate. Te Akau will campaign the colt in Melbourne in the spring, where he will attempt to add to his value in stallion-making races such as the Caulfield Guineas or Coolmore Stud Stakes.
The Sistema Stakes left many of us wondering what might have been, with Return To Conquer’s high-class stablemate La Dorada being scratched on the morning of the race due to a temperature spike.
That was the only real blip for La Dorada in a juvenile campaign that got better and better as it went along. She was a debut winner at Te Rapa in November, then produced an eye-catching finish for second in the Gr. 2 Eclipse Stakes on New Year’s Day.
La Dorada was unstoppable from that point on and strung together super-impressive victories in the Karaka Millions 2YO, the Gr. 2 Matamata Breeders’ Stakes and the Gr. 1 Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes. She is the first filly to complete the Karaka Millions-Matamata Breeders’ Stakes double, and only four other Karaka Millions winners have gone on to capture the Sires’ Produce Stakes – The Heckler (2009), Melody Belle (2017), Avantage (2018) and On The Bubbles (2021).
From five starts, La Dorada recorded four wins and a second placing and earned $1.06 million. She was bought by Ellis for $190,000 from Book 1 of Karaka 2024.
La Dorada was bred and sold by Waikato Stud and is a daughter of their freakish young stallion Super Seth, who has also sired a series of Group One winners in Australia in recent months with Feroce (Australian Guineas), Linebacker (Randwick Guineas) and Maison Louis (Queensland Derby).
The dam of La Dorada is the Savabeel mare Gold Fever, who herself won the Matamata Breeders’ Stakes in 2017. The family has an incredible record in that two-year-old fillies’ feature, with Gold Fever’s half-sister Gold Rush also winning the race in 2016. But this is by no means purely a two-year-old family – Gold Fever is a three-quarter-sister to the Australian Derby winner Major Beel.
La Dorada is likely to be set for a shot at the Gr. 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas at Riccarton in November.
Outside of Te Akau’s Group One-winning pair, there have been 11 other stakes-winning juveniles in New Zealand this season. Intention took out the Gr. 2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes, Too Sweet the Gr. 2 Eclipse Stakes, To Cap It All the Listed Wellesley Stakes (followed by placings in the Matamata Breeders’ Stakes and Sistema Stakes), Bona Sforza the Listed Welcome Stakes (in her only start), Little Black Dress the Listed Star Way Stakes, Lucy In The Sky the Listed Champagne Stakes at Riccarton, Te Akau’s Towering Vision the Listed Waikato Equine Veterinary Centre Stakes, Do You Just the Listed Champagne Stakes at Ellerslie, and Platinum Diamond the Listed Castletown Stakes. Lucy In The Sky and Platinum Diamond are both daughters of Cambridge Stud’s first-season stallion Hello Youmzain.
Another two-year-old whose achievements are worth mentioning is Landlock. The son of Merchant Navy turned Cody Cole’s $20,000 purchase price into more than $211,000 in stakes from a six-start campaign. He was a debut winner at Wanganui in September, and he later ran second in the Wakefield Challenge Stakes, fifth in the Karaka Millions 2YO, second in the Sistema Stakes and fourth in the Sires’ Produce Stakes.
