The Racing Media has been awash with stories of the sad passing of the mighty Savabeel, but given the strong association that Te Akau Racing have had with the progeny of this mighty Stallion, we have featured a story from their website below

From Te Akau Racing Website

Everyone connected to the Thoroughbred Racing industry is mourning the accidental death of 10-time Champion Sire Savabeel (Zabeel), who, in the early hours of 19 June, fractured a shoulder in his paddock at Waikato Stud.

A Group 1 Cox Plate (2040m) winning three-year-old, Savabeel served so well the trilogy of his Champion forefathers, Zabeel and Sir Tristram. The sire of 159 individual stakes’ winners, including 39 Group One’s, Savabeelstill has a chance to eclipse the record 166 by his sire Zabeel, after Sir Tristram (Sir Ivor) had produced 130.

Where the breed shaping lineage began is open to debate, but 11-time Champion Jockey Lester Piggott stated that Sir Ivor, one of his nine Group 1 Epsom Derby (2400m) winners, was the best horse he ever rode. The 1968 Derby winner, Sir Ivor possessed a turn of foot that proved the key attribute passed on to his sire sons, including Sir Tristram, Zabeel, and Savabeel, and again evidenced by sire sons of Savabeel now at stud, including the trio of Embellish, Cool Aza Beel and Noverre (all purchased and trained by Te Akau), Mo’unga, The Chosen One, and Savaglee who is set to stand his first season at Windsor Park Stud.

Savabeel holds a special place in hearts of so many, especially for Sir David Ellis and Te Akau Racing, who have had more success with his progeny than any other racing entity. When Belle Cheval won the Group 1 Vinery Stud Stakes (2000m) in March at Rosehill, she became the 11th Group One winner by Savabeel for Te Akau, following Group One winners now at stud: Embellish, Cool Aza Beel, and Noverre, and other Group One winners: Probabeel (4), a dual NZ Horse of the Year, Prise De Fer, Amarelinha (NZB Filly of the Year), Hall Of Fame, Sword Of Osman, Skew Wiff, The Perfect Pink, and a host of other stakes’ winners by the remarkable sire.

Te Akau bought and trained Damask Rose (Savabeel), the inaugural winner of the $3.5 million NZB Kiwi, while also being represented by Savabeel progeny in three of eight Karaka Million 2YO winners purchased by Ellis, while four-time Group One winner Probabeel, purchased on spec as a yearling by Ellis at Karaka, and owned by Sir Brendan & Lady Jo Lindsay, remains the only horse to have won the Karaka Million 2YO and Karaka Million 3YO double.

“Savabeel is certainly a horse that has been beautifully managed by Garry & Mark Chittick, and our thoughts are with the entire Chittick family and all the team at Waikato Stud,” Ellis said. “It’s come as quite a shock, because he’s always been such a well stallion and they’ve kept him fit. He’s been a freakishly good sire. Few would have thought you could have got another such good stallion as his father Zabeel and grandfather Sir Tristram, but he’s done them very proud and he’s really been the cornerstone of the New Zealand breeding industry for quite a while now.”

“The breeding team at Waikato Stud has done an incredible job with Savabeel, and bred and marketed his progeny so well. He’s served beautiful mares and he’s been so well handled that it’s no wonder he’s been such a good sire. I was at the Cox Plate the day Savabeel won. We had a runner in it, King’s Chapel, who finished seventh and went on to win New Zealand Horse of the Year, Champion Sprinter/Miler and Champion 3YO for his prior season.” 

“His yearlings were well conformed and striking types right from the outset. We’ve always liked them as types and have been consistent buyers of his stock and we at Te Akau and our owners have been well rewarded. It’s quite remarkable how well they develop from the yearling sales to two-year-olds and they’re natural racehorses that, typical of the breed, just keep getting better with time.  Statistically, we’ve had more success buying and training his progeny than any other stable and it’s certainly an honour to have achieved that.”

“While it’s such a loss, thankfully Waikato Stud has his sire son Noverre to take up the mantle. The trainers I spoke to this year at the Sydney sales and last month on the Gold Coast, all said they like them, and his first winner (Hailstones) looked promising when winning on debut recently in Sydney.”

The winner of 10 NZ Champion Stallion titles, Savabeel remains one shy of Foxbridge (Foxlaw), who won 11 titles, 1941 – 51 inclusive.

With his current foals and racing stock, Savabeel still has an opportunity to enhance his record of stakes’ winners and Champion Stallion titles, and with 37 horses on the books, either by Savabeel or out mares by him, Te Akau will be doing everything possible to help him achieve that goal.

John comments  “From a Fortuna Racing perspective, we have not had significant success with progeny of Savabeel – we certainly inspected many over the years, but because we always buy to budget, many we would have liked to secure went for more than our budget. However we have bought three of them over the years.

“In 2025, we bought a Yearling Filly at Karaka for $150k, now named Katerina Petrova, she has trialed well as a 2yo and is shaping up as a nice staying type 3yo and she is highly regarded by her training team”

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Guest Commentator – Des Coppins

Greetings John and Friday Flash readers.

A couple of weeks after having the versatile Leaderboard retired from racing after a brave finale at Te Rapa it was nice to see that he was going to be in lights again at Trentham this Saturday, however, with imminent heavy rain forecast, the WRC and NZTR have made the decision to postpone this iconic race day until next Thursday.

Leaderboard’s name will spearhead one of the race names on the under card of the big jumps day as a testament to his long lasting career and because of his big wins in the Wellington Cup and NZ St Leger. The Wellington Racing Club expresses its thanks to you John and Fortuna Racing for your contribution to the sponsorship.

Also in light of the sad loss of the iconic jumper West Coast, the Wellington Racing Club committee personally  “dipped in” to  help bank roll the sponsorship of one of the jumps races in West Coast’s name. The club thought it was the least they could do to honour of this unforgettable jumps star who in his time at the top won the Wellington Steeples in 2023.

THE WELLINGTON STEEPLES & RICCARTON’S GRAND NATIONAL STEEPLES  MAY BE ON TOP

THE Grant Plumbing Wellington Steeples is a time honoured jumps race up there alongside the Riccarton Grand National as one of the prime cross country events on the NZ calendar. The Wellington Steeples itself was first run in 1885 but figure 8 has been going since 1973. There’s little doubt that both these iconic jumps events  – the Wellington ‘chase and the Riccarton Grand National – played second fiddle to the Great Northern Steeples prior to Ellerslie disposing of its famous hill.

As we know the  Ellerslie housing development resulted in the transfer of all its jumping races to other venues and the Great Northern itself has moved to Te Aroha under a new name, the Great NZ Steeplechase. While its new placement and new look still attracts  many of the best ‘chasers the epic storyline it once had has faded a little for many onlookers and traditionalists. I’m unashamedly one of them.

In contrast the  Wellington ‘Chase has unquestionably retained its uniqueness, the thrills and excitement each year. The Figure of 8 course, which has been a feature at Trentham for over 53 years, puts both the horse and the jockey to the ultimate  test. Unlike standard hurdles or steeples courses, the Figure 8 requires our best jumpers and their riders to navigate all kinds of challenges with the sharp turning bends and different momentum shifts. As racegoers and fans of jumps races it’s always an  absorbing 4 to 5 minute thrill.

I’ve been fortunate to witness all of the Wellington Steeples since 1971 and I’m eager to see how things pan out on Saturday on a track which is traditionally more testing on the course proper than the figure 8.

TEN FUN FACT ABOUT WELLINGTON STEEPLES

1. In 1973 Destino won the first Figure 8 Wellington Steeples. He was trained by Bob Autridge and ridden by Graeme Walters.
2. NZ Racing Hall of Fame inductee Ken Browne, alongside his training partner and wife, Ann, saddled up the trifecta in 1997 with Flash Hunter, Trelay Boy and Lost in the Fog.
3. Three jockeys have won the Wellington Steeples three times, Percy Johnson (1891, 1896 and 1897); Graeme Walters ( 1970, 1972 and 1973) and  Isaac Lupton ( 2007, 2009 and 2013).
4. A controversial fence was erected less than 100m from the finish line in the 1971 event which claimed Final Luca who, at the time, had the race at his mercy. The horse was ridden by Robert Lammas, who retains his passion for racing as Trentham’s long standing clerk of the course.The fence at that spot never saw the light of day again. (John comments here with an interesting back story – the Trainer of Final Luca was the late Barney Lumsden, based at Foxton – in the 1980’s Barney became related to me by marriage, we became good friends and he trained my first horse, Templequay – Barney had secured this horse for me as an unbroken 3yo for just $3k and he went on to win 5 races, including one at Trentham and we then sold him to Australia for $50k – Barney, a veteran of the Maori Battallion who had seen active service in Italy in WW2, was an out and out horseman of the old school who trained many jumpers including Dural who won the 1952 Great Northern Steeples at Ellerslie.)
5. The 1971 race was won by 12 year old Teak, the co eldest horse ever to win the race. Teak later became one of the more famous horses of his era when winning the Hawkes Bay Steeples as a 15-year- old! The only other 12 year old to win the race  was Haydn in 1907.
6. The first female jockey to win the Wellington Steeples was Sue Thompson in 1987 on the Paul Nelson trained Storm.
7. The highest weight ever carried to success was 12 stone ( 76 kgs) by the NZ Racing Hall of fame inductee, Brookby Song in 1948.
8. Brian (“Baggy”) Hillis rode the winners of the race in 1962 ( Lochwood) and 1967 (Kumai). His son, Wayne, not to be outdone, also won twice, Fox Hunt (1993) and Consequence (1994).
9. West Coast, who won the event in 2023, is the only ‘chaser to win the big three, the Wellington, Grand National and Great Northern in the same calendar year.
10. Grant Plumbing principal Jim Cryan has sponsored the Wellington Steeples since 2010, the longest serving sponsor of the race since its inception in 1884.

Safe travels on Thursday for all contestants.

I’VE BEEN THINKING! ABOUT whether an all up bet is always best on the Fixed Odds platform or the tote. On Sunday my two Best Bets at Te Aroha and Awapuni –  along with the value bets – all ran in the money. On the tote the combined multi at Starting Price paid just under 20 to one whereas on the Fixed odds it just topped 10 to one.
That’s a huge discrepancy!

ELLERSLIE IMPROVERS

If you backed front runners at Ellerslie last week it wasn’t working as well for you as runners who were coming off the pace. Between 3 horse widths from the rail or the centre of the home straight was where the winners were coming from on Saturday on the soft 5.

ANORA: up against winners, she ran on solidly to grab third in the quickest sectionals. She won’t be a maiden for long.

ARTFUL DODGER: is improving with each run. His third start when 5th and charging to the line like no other in the race had a next up look about it.

DIAMOND JACK: is into a bad habit of missing the start. He will require a lesson in barrier manners in front of the judiciary but if can mend his ways this is the time of the year he excels. He made ground again over the final stages last weekend. The wetter the better for him, too.

MELBOURNE CUP TOUR
THE numbers are closing in on 60 people with a good spread of first timers and regulars. If you’ve been tossing and turning whether to tick this famous, historical week in the spring ( whether it’s 5 days or 8 days) my friendly advice is to enquire today. Simply call the Sporting Tours freephone number 0800 425577. You won’t regret it!

FREE TIPS AND GENEROUS SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

For the month of July and August here is a special offer to Fortuna followers. My email tipping service is discounted to just $125 ( gst inclusive ) for July and August. Once we hit the spring ( Sept-Oct-Nov) it’ll resume at the normal price of $240.
If you’d like to experiment with the tips in July and August you’ll also be bonused the rest of this month which includes the big day at Trentham next Thursday and over 55 meetings during this period. Drop me an email if you’re keen to have a crack before 8am Saturday and tips ( for Trentham) will follow (along with the banking details).

Good punting!
Des Coppins
021 448 052

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