Oxygen’s win breath of fresh air for Bay owner-breeder
Waipukurau thoroughbred owner-breeder Steve Ellis celebrated his first success on the racetrack for more than 18 months when Oxygen took out the $20,000 maiden hurdle race at Te Rapa last Saturday.
Ellis bred and ownsthe Citi Habit gelding who was recording his second win, his first coming in a 1600m maiden race at Matamata in December 2021.
Oxygen was trained then by the Matamata partnership of Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott and won at odds of 87 to one.
The horse then spent a short time in the Hastings stable of Richard McKenzie last season before he was again transferred north.
Ellis knew the now-six-year-old was bred to excel as a jumper so he sent him back to Matamata to be trained by the husband-and-wife team of Peter and Jessica Brosnan, who concentrate on jumpers. He was having his third hurdle start for them when he won last Saturday.
“The Brosnans are doing a great job with him,” Ellis said this week.
“We were a bit worried when he finished last in his first hurdle race at Hastings but he got too handy that day and we think he may have held his breath.
“You need to settle him back and let him do his own thing and he went much better when we did that at his second go and finished fifth.
“He hit the last fence that day but it was a good run and I think he’s starting to step up to the plate now.”
In-form Irish jockey Jack Power was engaged for the horse at Te Rapa last Saturday and Ellis said having such a confident rider aboard certainly helped.
Oxygen was slow to begin in the 3200m event but Power didn’t panic, letting the horse settle at the back of the field in the early stages before gradually improving his position to be fifth starting the last 800m.
The horse looked to be under pressure coming to the home turn but kept grinding away under the urgings of Power, and managed to get up and snatch a nose victory right on the line.
“It was a good win and his time was just as good as what Taika ran in winning the open hurdle,” Ellis said.
“He is only young for a jumper and he’s a tough horse.
“He has got the right breeding for a jumper as he comes from the same family as Hypnotize, Our Jonty, Wise Men Say and Blood Brother.”
Ellis said Oxygen was now likely to contest a Special Conditions Open Hurdle race over 3000m at Rotorua on August 20 and, depending on how he performed there, he might go on to the $150,000 Great Northern Hurdles (4200m) at Te Rapa on September 17.
“We might even put him back on the flat and give him a run in the Road To Jericho race over 3210m at New Plymouth next month,” he said.
Ellis has previously held an owner-trainer’s licence, with the last winner he prepared being Devi, who took out a maiden 1350m race at Waipukurau in September 2018.
He bred Oxygen out of the Rhythm mare Zazu, who he bought off Hawke’s Bay woman Sue Foote.
Zazu, who is now deceased, also left King Of Rock who won two races and was placed 10 times for Ellis and recorded a second and a third over hurdles.
Nelson-McDougal partnership takes HB title
The Hastings stable of Paul Nelson and Corrina McDougal produced two winners from two starters at last Saturday’s Te Rapa meeting to claim the title as top Hawke’s Bay trainers for the second successive year.
Going into the last day of racing for the 2022-23 season, the Nelson-McDougal stable and Guy Lowry were locked on 18 wins apiece.
Lowry didn’t have a runner last Saturday while the Nelson-McDougal colours were carried to victory by Taika in the $30,000 Stewart Browne Memorial Hurdle and Raucous in the $30,000 Woods Contracting Steeplechase.
Nelson and McDougal were also the leading Hawke’s Bay trainers on wins in the 2021-22 season when they produced 24 winners, with Lowry and John Bary equal second on 13.
Taika and Raucous were both completing consecutive wins, Taika having scored in a maiden hurdle race at Hastings on July 1 while Raucous had also been successful over steeples at Te Rapa on July 8.
Both horses were ridden last Saturday by Irish-born jockey Jack Power, who certainly had a day to remember. He had three rides at the meeting for three wins, having also taken out the maiden hurdle event on Oxygen.
Power, 23, has been a revelation since arriving in New Zealand at the beginning of the winter with his 20 rides having now reaped seven wins, three seconds and two-thirds.
He is attached to the Nelson-McDougal stable while he and his partner are on a working holiday in New Zealand.
Power showed great patience and judgment in each of his three wins last Saturday.
He positioned Taika in the first three or four from the outset of the 3200m open hurdle and still had his mount under a good hold when he moved to second with a round to go.
Tahuroa Height had made most of the pace and was still clear rounding the home turn, but Power started to urge Taika along and the horse quickly ranged up to take the lead jumping the last fence and then raced clear to win by 1¾ lengths.
Taika is now raced by Paul Nelson and his brother Mark in partnership with the horse’s original owner Ken Gardner, who lives in the Waikato.
Paul Nelson also shares in the ownership of Raucous, along with the horse’s Hawke’s Bay breeder Ken Browne and the sisters Rose Sellwood and Jeanann Hercock.
The nine-year-old Nom de Jeu gelding was recording his fourth win and his third over the steeplechase fences.
The horse wanted to go keenly in the early stages of last Saturday’s 3900m race, but Power got him to settle better starting the last 1600m. He looked under pressure when a distant third coming to the home turn, but rallied gamely over the final stages to pick up the first two and surge clear in the run to the line to win by 1¼ lengths.
HB jockeys high on premiership
Hawke’s Bay jockeys Kate Hercock and Lily Sutherland enjoyed plenty of success in the 2022-23 racing season, which ended last Saturday, with both of them finishing in the top 20 on the premiership.
Hercock kicked home 52 winners, a sizeable increase on her 29 wins in the 2021-22 season, and it had her finish 13th.
Apprentice Lily Sutherland brought up her 49th win for the season when successful aboard Aqua Man in a rating 75 race over 1400m at Otaki last Saturday. She was 15th overall and the fourth most successful apprentice, behind Tayla Mitchell, Kelsey Hannan and Joe Kamaruddin.
Horses ridden by both Hercock and Sutherland won in excess of $ 1.2 million in stakemoney.
Hercock has now notched up 327 wins in a career spanning nearly 30 years, while it was only Sutherland’s second full season of rac -riding and she has now ridden more than 50 winners. She is apprenticed to Hastings trainer Vicki Wilson but is on loan to Whanganui-based Kevin Myers.
Both Hercock and Sutherland have a busy weekend coming up because they will both be in action at today’s first day of the Grand National meeting at Riccarton before heading back north to ride at Hawera tomorrow.
Both have six confirmed rides at Riccarton while Hercock is down for four rides at Hawera at this stage and Sutherland has seven.
First winner for HB-based sire
Hawke’s Bay-based thoroughbred stallion Mongolian Falcon was represented by his first winner when Mumbo Jumbo took out a 1200m maiden race at the Riccarton synthetic track on Friday last week.
Vicki Wilson, who stands the Gr.2 winning son of Fastnet Rock at her Hau Ora Farm, was rapt with the result.
“It was fantastic and he really deserves it. To get the first one out of the way is always wonderful,” she said.
“Mumbo Jumbo was unlucky last prep not to get a win, so she was very deserving.
“With his [Mongolian Falcon] breedin, and the horse that he is, I think he will have a lot more.
“We have got some very nice ones by him in our stable and they are just coming up stronger now. They will trial shortly and then race.”
Mongolian Falcon, who stands at a fee of $3000 plus GST, was the winner of three races from a limited racing career, including the Gr.2 Hawke’s Bay Guineas (1400m) and the listed Reid and Harrison Slipper (1200m).
He is out of the group race-performed Galileo mare Amazing Beauty, who also left the multiple race winner Mongolian Beauty.
