Justify - New Winner

New stakes winners for resident stallions Redwood and Tarzino were celebrated by Westbury Stud at the weekend.

Aga Khan Studs don’t race a lot of geldings, but one that they do is Calandagan, who has taken giant strides in 2025 to become the Cartier European Horse of the Year and on Sunday he achieved the almost unthinkable with a history making win in the Group I Japan Cup (2400m).

The two-year-old race staged by the Levin Racing Club at Otaki every November has a proven record of unearthing top-level talent, and Te Akau Racing is hoping for more of the same with Sunday’s Levin Jumpouts 2YO (1100m) winner Kinnaird.

A brilliant winner of the Group I ATC Surround Stakes in 2019, So You Think mare Nakeeta Jane is on the board as a broodmare with her first foal to race a debut winner at Canterbury on Friday night for the Chris Waller stable.

Peachy Keen capped a super-consistent spring campaign with a last-gasp victory in Sunday’s $50,000 Happy Hire Cromwell Cup (2030m).

Last Saturday in Australia there were an astonishing 15 stakes races run in a time period most trainers see as being out of season, barring the Perth Summer Carnival, when we consider that our elite horses are programmed towards spring and autumn, so what is going on?

Yulong has wasted little time in making a mark on New Zealand racing this spring, and those emerald green and white colours were carried to another feature-race win by Azeezle in Sunday’s Levin Truck Services Levin Stakes (1200m) at Otaki.

Cambridge trainer Stephen Marsh won the Gr.3 Jennian Homes Wellington Stakes (1600m) for the fifth time at Otaki on Sunday with emerging talent Ammirati, but this was a win unlike any other.

Stephen Marsh has his sights set on further feature-race success, with his proven performer Provence confirmed for Saturday’s Gr.1 TAB Mufhasa Classic (1600m) at Trentham.

While it may have taken until his fifth start to break his maiden, 3yo Pierata colt Kilbrannan has pedigree on his side and with the step up to 1300m, the Gary Portelli trained colt impressed at Newcastle on Sunday when breaking his maiden for Laurel Oak Bloodstock and partners.