Trevor Casey owns stallion Sky Major, who stands this season at $2500+GST at Wai Eyre Farm in North Canterbury. When the horse first returned from North America, Casey purchased or leased more than 25 mares to put in foal to help get foals on the ground and attract mares in his third and fourth seasons, […]
It Appears Clear That HRNZ Doesn’t Have a Single Clue
The $1 million breeding incentive scheme announced by Harness Racing New Zealand last week has been met with mixed reactions from across the breeding sector. On the back of last year’s microchipped foal crop dropping to a scarcely-believable 1367, HRNZ CEO Gary Woodham conceded something drastic needed to be done to address the alarming trend. […]
Stone Walls, Drugs and Dead Horses – Part 1 – Tell Me About it, Stud
Steve Stockman has been around harness racing for many years, but up until the last few years he was just another face in the crowd and player in the game. Then one day in 2020 he untied the purse strings, and all of a sudden Stockman became the man. He has been spending like a […]
Stone Walls, Drugs and Dead Horses – Part 2 – Pray For the Dead, All Ye Who Mourn
CYA DOIT Date of Death – 20 May 2022 Place of Death – Alexandra Park Paceway Age at Death – 3 years old Had 7 starts as a 2YO for one second to Jagera, who is no champion. Had 5 months off then returned to win 3 out of 4 and run 2nd in the […]
Stone Walls, Drugs and Dead Horses – Part 3 – This Has to Stop Before a Human Being Dies Too
Not all the Telfer horses die on the track. Some survive, and almost kill others. Enjoy Me is a 4-year-old mare who raced at Alexandra Park on the same night that her stablemate Cya Dot died. Two starts before Enjoy Me had won at Cambridge. A year before that she won the rich Sires Stakes. […]
Who’s Going to Run This Town? – Not You Sir (First Published Feb 2012)
The All Stars Stable of Natalie Rasmussen, Mark Purdon and later Hayden Cullen were the leading trainers of pacers by prizemoney in New Zealand last year, as they have been for the past few years. They trained 97 winners and 116 placed horses across all ages, classes and grades, for total earnings of $3.6 million. […]
Stone Walls, Drugs and Dead Horses – Part 4 – Please Sir, Don’t Let Another Horse Die
Three Stonewall Stud owned horses have died on the track in the past 4 months. Each of them were trained by Steven Telfer. Telfer is the de facto partner of Jill Stockman, the equal share owner in Stonewall Stud with her husband Steve, and has been for a decade. Two of the horses that died […]
Stone Walls, Drugs and Dead Horses – Part 5 – Behind the Mask
This Dr Sam Taylor. He is the vet for Robert Dunn, Steve Telfer, and the Woodend Beach crew. My grandma always told me never to judge a book by it’s cover. I reckon she was right.
Stone Walls, Drugs and Dead Horses – Part 6 – The Slaughter Stretches Across the Seas
Our old mates from Summit Bloodstock were silly enough to buy a horse off Stonewall Stud recently. Stonewall don’t sell good ones. Miss Hathaway was the horse’s name. It came over to Australia on the 30th of March this year. The new trainer gave her a workout. She dropped dead. It was not Summit’s fault. […]
You Know You’ve Got the Slowest Horse in the World When Even the Woodend Beach Boys Drugs Can’t Get Him Going
Over in the South Island of New Zealand there lives a pacer named Pocket Call. He is a slow pacer, a very slow one indeed, perhaps even the slowest in the world. Pocket Call has had sixty starts over the past 3 years. He hasn’t won or run a place in any of them, although […]