Planning the key to Champions Day success
Dennis Ryan - Raceform • March 15th, 2025 11:00 AM • 5 min read
The planning required for success at racing’s highest level was on full display last weekend on New Zealand racing’s most lucrative ever single card, Barfoot & Thompson Champions Day at Ellerslie.
As anyone who has worked with animals would know only too well – and in particular when it comes to those being fine-tuned for optimum athletic performance – any number of complications can interrupt plans. The real test for those involved then becomes one of making the right decisions to circumvent unexpected judderbars.
No two training regimes are the same, whether that be New Zealand’s most successful stable of the modern era, the multi-layered Te Akau operation, Stephen Marsh, who has become the perennial trainers’ premiership bridesmaid, or the many other players in such a highly competitive and exacting professions.
It’s now on record that the Te Akau partnership of Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson and Marsh each claimed a treble on Champions Day. Walker and Bergerson’s day began with Francee in the first race, the Entain/NZB Pearl Series Final, and continued with a 100th Group One success for Te Akau founder David Ellis, compliments of unbeaten colt Return To Conquer in the Sistema Stakes.
Their crowning glory came with Damask Rose in the richest ever race staged in New Zealand and this country’s first ever thoroughbred slot race, the $3.5 million NZB Kiwi. Fresh from winning the Karaka Million 3YO six weeks earlier, she went into the big one off the back of what her trainers described as a faultless preparation.
That might have explained why her price on the World Pool tote plunged from $9 at the start of the day to $4.40 at the jump, but her lack of enthusiasm out of the gates would have sent a collective shudder through all those pinning their hopes on the Savabeel filly.
For some unknown reason Damask Rose was anything but inclined to be competitive and was still last with a mountain to climb nearing the home turn. That’s when the cool head of international jockey Blake Shinn kicked in as he made the only decision that could salvage the situation.
Pushing through in a Moses-like re-enactment, Shinn never left the inside rail and the saloon passage he found had Damask Rose in front with 150m to run and off and gone for a length and a half victory. Victorian raider Evaporate, long-time favourite and the highest rated in the field, was brave finishing into second out wide but along with every other runner, was no match for the horse that covered less ground than any other.
Te Akau’s other big win was marked by anxiety at the opposite end of the race, the Gr. 1 Sistema Stakes. Again Shinn was aboard and everything was going swimmingly on the Snitzel colt boasting three unbeaten stakes wins as he cruised in midfield before moving through to challenge and hit the lead.
But then the under-rated Cody Cole-trained Landlock suddenly burst from the pack and dived at the odds-on favourite, failing by a head to stage the upset of the two-year-old season. Victory was still sweet as the A$1.3 million colt notched his all-important Group One, even if the narrow victory meant putting a line through any Golden Slipper aspirations.
“Days like this don’t just happen, they’re the result of weeks and months of preparation and planning involving a whole lot of people,” Walker said afterwards in recognition of the multiple elements involved in his operation.
For David Ellis, Champions Day was another milestone for New Zealand’s leading racehorse syndicator that had its beginnings half a century ago. Victory in the NZB Kiwi was another important stake in the ground, while the Sistema completed a century of Group Ones by horses he had either bred or purchased. That sequence had begun in 1986 with Cosmetique in the Easter Handicap – at Ellerslie of course.
“Days like that make me both proud and pleased, to see the delight on so many people’s faces – our owners, Mark and Sam, younger guys in the team like our racing manager Reece Trumper, every one of those who make it happen.
“It certainly motivates me and Karyn at this time of year as we syndicate our next batch of yearlings. We’ve bought 57 so far and even though they’re selling at record speed, there’s still room for anyone else to come on board.”
Cambridge-based Stephen Marsh has always had a way with horses, from his years growing up as the son of former leading jockey and then trainer Bruce Marsh, to his move north and now recognised as one of the very best in his profession.
His management of El Vencedor over the past year or more has been a masterclass, and even though La Crique put him to the test in Saturday’s Bonecrusher Stakes, the big son of Shocking was up for it as he stretched his head out for his fourth-straight win.
El Vencedor was both the crowd and punters’ favourite, but not so stablemate Provence, who despite her win two starts earlier in the Gr. 1 Thorndon Mile, was allowed to start at 30-to-one in the HKJC World Pool NZ Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes. The older sister to Damask Rose wouldn’t be denied though, as Sam Spratt brought her down the outside to claim this country’s only fillies and mares’ Group One by a short head from the desperately unlucky Jaarffi and the below-par favourite Legarto.
Marsh, who completed his treble with I Am Invincible colt Tardelli in the last race, is now looking forward to the prospect of taking El Vencedor to Hong Kong for the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Sha Tin in six weeks’ time. He’s realistic about the prospects of New Zealand’s star middle-distance performer against some of the world’s best 2000m horses, but is equally candid about what the venture means for him and owner-breeders Mark Freeman and David Price.
“First and foremost it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he says. “This horse always gives you everything when he goes out on the track and the way he races he’ll give it his best shot again – after all he deserves the opportunity – but it’s the trip of a lifetime for all of us and we’re going to enjoy ourselves.”
In racing’s true egalitarian manner, Champions Day wasn’t only about the big outfits. The headline act amongst the smaller operations was Shaun and Emma Clotworthy’s Byerley Park stable with Willydoit’s Trackside New Zealand Derby romp.
Just as significant in that context were Trav’s Barfoot & Thompson Auckland Cup, the runaway win by Ken and Bev Kelso’s fleet-footed filly Alabama Lass in the Haunui Farm King’s Plate, and fellow Matamata-based couple Stephen Ramsay and Julia Ritchie’s win with the Sir Peter Vela-bred and owned Island Life in the Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Sunline Vase.
All credit to the Clotworthys for turning around the fortunes of their big Tarzino gelding after his lack-lustre Avondale Guineas effort. He paraded for the Derby with a spring in his step and a glow in his coat that had been missing two weeks earlier and that was complemented by a confident ride from Mick Dee.
The Melbourne-based expat removed any risk of a repeat of the Avondale Guineas’ pedestrian pace by putting Willydoit on the speed and to the front well before the home turn. Then it was a matter of outstaying the opposition, something that the son of a Victoria Derby winner and grandson of a 3200m Brisbane Cup winner made look easy.
Along with part-owner Bryan Black, who the Clotworthys had joined forces with to buy Willydoit for $75,000 from Westbury Stud’s Karaka draft in 2023, and almost buried amongst the throng of MyRacehorse syndicate members, was a little man in a wide-brimmed hat reliving one of his greatest moments in racing.
Shaun Clotworthy’s octogenarian father Kim was the part-owner of one of the best ever New Zealand Derby winners, 1977 victor Uncle Remus. To enjoy the same thrill nearly half a century later will be something for the whole Clotworthy family to treasure.
Family was also paramount in Trav’s Auckland Cup win. The son of Almanzor who traces on his bottom line to dual New Zealand Cup winner Princess Mellay, was reared on the Connors family’s Whangaehu dairy farm and is trained by Marc and Eris Connors’ son Raymond on the former Bulls racecourse.
I had to chuckle last weekend when I read a headline on an Australian news outlet – “Jumps racing trainer wins Auckland Cup”.
Sure, Raymond Connors has a proud record in jumps racing – viz his win as an amateur jockey on Our Jonty in the 1998 Great Northern Steeplechase and as the trainer a decade later of Hypnotize, who won the famous Ellerslie race in 2007, 2008 and 2010.
The younger Connors has also trained any number of decent flat winners, headed by Blood Brotha, the winner of the New Zealand Cup in 2011 and 2012 and the Wellington Cup in 2013.
His equally-applied conditioning skills were again evident in presenting Trav for his first start since an unlucky fourth in the Wellington Cup seven weeks earlier. In the hands of Masa Hashizume, the big bay with the common Connors denominator of stout White Robe Lodge bloodlines flowing through his veins, wouldn’t be denied in holding out Sydney raider Tajanis to complete his trainer’s set of major 3200-metre wins.
Photograph at the top of the page: A jubilant Te Akau principal David Ellis escorts Damask Rose and Blake Shinn back to the NZB Kiwi’s winner’s stall. Photo Credit: RaceForm
