NAVALHA wins on his NZ debut for Fortuna

Christmas came two days early for the Members of the Fortuna Navalha Syndicate, when their handsome 3yo Gelding, NAVALHA, overcame a wide barrier draw in the astute hands of Opie Bosson, to lead all the way and come home victorious in what was his first NZ race and his first in the Fortuna colours – much to the delight of his big group of Owners who were on course to cheer their charge home.

NAVALHA (which means “Razor” in Portuguese), a 3yo Gelding by Sebring out of the Encosta de Lago Mare, Afiado, was acquired by John Galvin on the recommendation of Fortuna’s Singapore Trainer, Mark Walker, for just A$27,500 from the Inglis Digital Sale late July 2020. John Galvin picks up the story “Mark Walker and I, over the past couple of years, have made a bit of an art form of targeting well bred 2yo’s who had previously been acquired for big money at the Aus yearling sales as Stallion prospects. However, as inevitably happens a lot of the time, these horses don’t meet their owners expectations, either because they don’t consider them top liners and/or they need to be gelded and so they just move them on. In Navalha’s case, he had been a A$450k purchase by James Harron Bloodstock at the 2019 Magic Million Gold Coast Yearling Sale – they had given him a couple of trials and three races – he was very colty and so they decided to sell him – we picked him up for A$27,500, gelded him straight away, brought him home to NZ, gave him a decent spell at Te Akau Stud and now we seem to have a very nice horse on our hands – big kudos to Trainer Jamie Richards and his team for making such a good job with the preparation of this horse – and Opie summed up the situation perfectly, jumping well from the barrier, going to the front when no one wanted to take him on and rating him nicely in the run.”

Click HERE to view the Race result and Video replay

“Navalha” – wins on NZ debut – Matamata 23rd December 2020

Navalha is raced by the Fortuna Navalha Syndicate, an ownership group of 57 individuals, several  of whom are brand new to horse ownership

Navalha was strapped by Sumeet Pillay