Randwick this Saturday will feature a smorgasbord of racetrack stars with the Group I ATC Epsom, The Metropolitan and Flight Stakes to be decided, while across the city at Horsley Park the off the track thoroughbreds will be on show at Equimillion with Breednet proud to field a team of five sponsored competitors.
Team Breednet had such good fun at the Thoroughbred Sport Horse National Titles earlier this year in May that we decided to regroup for Equimillion with all of our sponsored riders primed for action in the showjumping next Monday.
The 90cm junior class is the first event in Ring One and will be hotly contested with Team Breednet riders Frida Contur on Van Tango and William Hodgekiss on Anembo Jedi, who was retrained and sold to Will and his family by another of our riders Vicki Cowdroy.
Frida has been in the Breednet jumping team since last year competing successfully at the past two TSHA National Titles, while Will was in the winning Breednet team for us at Stonewall in 2023 and comes into this event in hot form after taking the title of Champion Showjumper at 1m and Reserve Champion at 1.10 at the recent Australian National Interschools Championships at Tamworth on his other horse Blueberry R (sadly not a thoroughbred!).
Vicki Cowdroy and Alyssa Cochrane combine motherhood and work commitments with competing and training horses and both line up in the 1m open class on Anembo von Choux and Cut’Em Up, who have been kept ticking over in recent months with the Western ag show run seeing them travel far and wide over NSW.
And finally I’m in the team on my soulmate Pie, the mighty Daybreak Del Pietro and we go around in the 90cm amateur class in Ring Two following the highly anticipated New Stars class on Monday.
New Stars is a class for horses that have officialy retired from racing within 12 months of this show and is dated at their official retirement date according to Racing Australia rather than their last trial or race. The field this year features 43 contenders and they include sprint superstars Nature Strip and Lost and Running, so all eyes will be on this class.
Pie and I spent the winter months trekking back and forth to Sydney for the Winter Classic and Waratah World Cup shows racking up some good performances and after a little freshen up Pie is ready for another conquest.
If you love thoroughbreds and care about what happens in their next lives after racing, Equimillion runs over four days October 4 -7 and admission is free.
