Stephen Hunt runs the numbers reviewing Ashburton
Stephen Hunt • October 14th, 2025 1:48 PM
FIVE HIGHEST RATED WINNERS FROM THE LAST 7 DAYS
ASHBURTON RC @ ASHBURTON
How the track played…
There were two leaders that won, with winners coming as far back as 5.9L (Rosso) off the leader at the 600m mark.
Race winners were in lanes 5,1,5,6,1,3,2,4,1.
At the top of the day the track was rated as a Soft 5 but after the first race was quickly upgraded to a Good 4. With the warm weather and drying conditions, it proved to be tough for back markers to circle the field and make significant ground with an advantage in being close to the fence around the turn and lanes 1-5 into the home straight.
RACE DAY SUMMARY:
Moment Of The Day ❤️: Rosso (R4)
Horses To Follow 🔎: Rosso (R4)
Punters Left It In Thad's Bag 💰: Professional Lad (R1), Cognito (R7), Miss Starlight (R8), Show Pony (R9)
Tactics Questioned❓: The Barneswood Farm Stakes as a form race when looking towards the Guineas.
Rosso made an outstanding New Zealand debut at just his tenth career start. His performance was nothing short of dominant, racing worse of midfield off a steady pace before unleashing the fastest sectionals of the race over the final 800m, 600m, 400m, and 200m. It was a great training feat to have the five-year-old return to win after arriving from Australia, speaks to how well he has adapted here and progressed under the guidance of the Pitman stable. Looking at his overseas form and breeding, it suggests he’s better suited over further, and this was off a 65-day break, so the potential for upside on 83.2 paints a very bright future.
Spot On Time made it three consecutive wins with a hard-fought victory in the Open Sprint. Carrying 56.5kg in this race, his 89.2 rating was a slight regression from his previous start, rating 92. It will be interesting to see what race he targets over NZ Cup week, either a TAB Mile where he’s yet to run beyond 1400m or kept to the sprinting trips in races like the Stewards Stakes over 1200m.
Third Decree (3rd) gave Spot On Time (1st ) 3.5kg, earning a marginally higher rating (92.5) when normalised to weight-for-age. Third Decree has rated up to 96.8 and 95 in the past, one of them her 96.8 when second to Mystic Park over 1000m at Riccarton. She'll likely be targeting races like the Pegasus and the Stewards Stakes in early November.
Cool Aza Rene produced a strong performance in the Group 3 feature, running an impressive 90 rating - a figure that aligns with the median for winners of this race since 2016. The difficulty I had when assessing her performance was that the clock suggests it should’ve been better than the 90 rating but that wouldn’t have made much sense. It would suggest around 96 for the winner but that would have virtually resulted in every horse running a big new peak, which isn't realistic, especially given relatively compressed margins with less than 2 lengths across the first five. Even at 90 for Cool Aza Rene, I have the others behind her above their previous best. The well-backed Miss Starlight was rated about 1.75 lengths, below her last start. As I've said in previous articles, sometimes the clock doesn't make any sense and your instincts and experience in terms of what you know about the horses has to weigh heavily.
