That is awesome!

If you take pictures please post some of them.

Does it mean anything that Opie rode Noble Warrior in his last start but is on The Hombre? Just curious.

Merry Christmas, ed, and merry Christmas to all the fine fine horsies over there.

Thanks, and same to you! Hope you have a fantastic Christmas. I'm at work unfortunately. But I had a great Christmas morning with family and will see them again for dinner after I finish. :)

Good point about Opie. I'd say it's probably a wise choice. This race is just a stepping stone towards races over longer distances for Noble Warrior, while The Hombre is ideally suited to the sprints. The Hombre's also a good chance in the G1 Railway on New Year's Day, so Opie might want to secure the mount in that one. Noble Warrior's unlikely to run in that event.

Well, how about that?

The weather was terrible, so I was expecting a day full of disappointment and weird results. It wasn't that at all. Every one of those four stakes races was brilliant. Great day! Highlights have to be The Hombre and Veyron, although undefeated filly Habibi was amazing against the boys in the Guineas too.

Enjoying his work. :)

Pinzaara won a race at Ellerslie today!

OH ED!!! I actually was away but begged someone here (thank you, Golfer) to please please please just check the one race (VEYRON!) but oh my Mr.The Hombre won too!!! SO happy about that and when I am awake will watch all the replays.

Geez maybe I'm bad luck and should always go out of town when he runs, huh? :D

:{>:


CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! How exciting ed. Thrilled for you

Happy New Year. :)

Good luck to Habibi, to Shuka (You can do this! You don't have to be 2nd!!!), Postman's Daughter, Floria (is she black? Good Lord she is pretty) and Platinum Princess in the Rich Hill Mile (am sure I'm leaving a few out in that one) AND in the Railway go Durham Town, The Hombre (Sam Spratt up!), Antonio, Ginner Hart, Jetset Lad and whoever else I'm forgetting!!!!!

(edit - Annie in the Auckland Cup....

This can go on all day).

Happy new year!

What an amazing day at Ellerslie. Fleur de Lune got her G1 win in the Railway! She had been second in five of them - behind the likes of Mufhasa and Jimmy Choux - but never won one till today. So thrilled for her. Great race by Durham Town too. Not The Hombre's day - he messed up the start and wasn't really part of the race at all after that.

Habibi - wow. What a special girl. 5 starts, 5 wins. And this was a monstrous performance today.

Fix was fabulous in the Royal - Kidwelly got past her, but she fought back.

And there were some crazy upsets - Hiace at 40-1 in the City of Auckland, Miss Pelear at 28-1 in the Rich Hill...

Just an amazing day. 10 awesome races - worth watching all the replays if you have time.

Good for her! I'd forgotten how many 2nds she had had.

Yeah, my The Hombre... he wins so rarely so I didn't expect him to (doesn't he win basically two times per year? :D ) but it's always interesting to see which jockey has the mount since it always seems to change!

Habibi won again? That's awesome and yes i will watch ALL the replays throughout the day.

Hey ed anything on Xcellent lately? I wish his site werre still up...:(

For absolutely no reason I was watching the replay of... not the Trentham but the one where him and Sir Slick were one and two... :)

Watched ALL the replays... great races!

Fix was amazing (huge fan of her dad). :)

You are so lucky you got to be there!

Yeah, it was brilliant. It was a really long day, with trophies being handed out after almost ever race, but it went by so fast!

The weather was much better than Boxing Day too! Much more like what we expect in Auckland this time of year.

I haven't heard anything about him for ages! This is the last time I saw him mentioned in an article, back in August 2011:

I'd love to go there and see him some time. It's only about a 2-hour drive from Auckland, so there's no excuse not to!

I hope you get a chance to do it one day!

What's coming up... is the Telegraph this month or next?

Yep, that's right! The Telegraph is on the 19th.

And we're already starting to look ahead to the Derby on March 2. Habibi is the 5-1 favourite after her feats at Ellerslie.

I cannot wait for you annual Derby preview!

We haven't talked about Huffer yet.... any idea what the plans are for her?

Read that Habibi is the Lebanese word for dear one or darling.

Awww! :)

I think they're having a bit of a hard time finding races for Huffer - they've entered her in a couple of stakes sprints, and she hasn't quite been able to sneak into the field. She was four horses away from getting a spot in the Railway field, and I think it'll be the same for her in the Telegraph. Maybe they'll try to win another race with her before then to get her rating up.

Yeah, the owner (a lovely old lady) mentioned something about that when she was presented with the Championship Stakes trophy. And she said the filly was a dream come true.

There is a video profile of Veyron on the NZ racing site (dated tomorrow here so brand new). :)

That's a great video!

Pinzaara's back at Ellerslie again Saturday. Can't wait! Tough field, though - Barbaric looks pretty good. I'll be delighted if she's in the first three.

In other news, a couple of great photos of the lovely Habibi winning the G2 Championship Stakes at Ellerslie on NYD.

Best of luck, hope she wins! How exciting.

Lovely picture of Habibi but oh ed need to ask...

The silly hk name changes are kind of easy to adjust to (although I wish they wouldn't!) and adding the "King" before Mufhasa is at least fitting but changing Warhorse to Tougher than Ever? :confused:

What do you think? He will always be Warhorse to me. :wf

Yeah, I don't really like that. Warhorse was a great name.

I disagree with renaming horses in general, I think. It makes it harder to follow how they're going! I don't mind it so much in Australia - King Mufhasa, etc - because that's due to there being another horse registered there with the same name. It's fine to change the name then, but I don't like it when they're just renamed for no reason.