This year the NZTBA are celebrating a 21-year partnership with our good friends at Dunstan Feeds.
Dave Smith and his team have been wonderful partners continuing their support of our Association and working with us along the way.
About the same time Dunstan also began sponsoring the Dunstan Stayers Championship for up and coming young stayers.
On New Year’s Day this year the final of the highly contested series was won by Paisley Park (Azamour[IRE]- Musical Magic[GB]), raced and bred by Garry Christini and his good mate Dave Trubshoe, and trained by Graham Richardson.
Paisley Park joins the likes of former Auckland Cup winner Pentane, Graphic (Wellington Cup), The Fuzz (Geelong Cup) and So Pristine (Gr.2 SAJC Queen of the South Stakes) to win this coveted event.
With the stayers final being such a success another series was added to the racing calendar four years ago, the Dunstan Feeds 1500 Championship catering for both sprinters and milers, and this year that was won by Master Painton (Reliable Man(GB)-Abbey Tralae), bred and raced by Stan Painton.
This month we catch up with the successful breeders of those two gallopers.
Garry Christini has been racing horses for a number of years, with quite a bit of success. The first horse he had a share in was the group one winner and Champion two-year-old Joker’s Wild, so that was him hooked on the game.
That horse was trained by Mike Moroney, and it was through his brother Paul that Christini accidently became a broodmare owner and breeder.
“Paul Moroney bought Musical Magic(GB) back from England she had a few races there and was placed, with the idea to race her here and then breed from her but that didn’t happen,” recalled Christini.
“So, she went to Australia for her first mating and got stuck there with EI (equine influenza) and stayed longer than we planned but when we eventually got her back, we sent her to Brighthill Farm and she has been there ever since.
“I am the type of person who likes to look after the people that look after me so she has only ever gone to Brighthill stallions and a number of the horses she has produced have been winners so we have been very fortunate.
“It’s all a bit of fun really, a hobby thing, a fun thing we go about to win races. She’s getting a bit long in the tooth now, but she is still getting in foal.”
When she arrived in New Zealand Musical Magic was in foal to Dubai Destination(USA) with Dubai Shuffle the resulting foal. He raced out of the Richardson Racing Stable as well, and Dave Trubshoe was also part-owner of that horse.
“Dave and I have been mates for years and raced horses for years, we are both involved in the supermarket business,” he said.
“We race a few together and have a bit of fun, in fact I reckon I have had about 50 winners and Dave has been in a good few of those.”
Dubai Shuffle won four races for the pair and was an honest racehorse running over 17 placings.
Following Dubai Shuffle, Musical Magic has produced three foals to Perfectly Ready(AUS), Itsa Houdini, Tiara Concerto and Ready To Rock who has placed.
Then followed Paisley Park, and another as yet unnamed Perfectly Ready colt. Her next foal, a Dalghar(FR) filly, was sold at Karaka this summer and she has a Dalghar colt at foot and is in foal to Eminent (GB).
“I am looking forward to that result and we are trying to breed another stayer,” enthused Crostini. “We achieved that with Azamour(IRE) and should with Eminent. With Dalghar we have injected a little bit of speed into the family.”
Paisley Park is by the ill-fated Brighthill Stallion Azamour and looks to be a very promising stayer, and at five is just coming into his own. Prior to his win in the Dunstan Final he had won three races and placed second in the Listed Matamata Cup. Since the Dunstan Final he has run fifth in the Gr.2 Avondale Cup and will head to the Gr.1 Auckland Cup this weekend.
“New Year’s Day was pretty cool,” Christini said on the subject of returning to Ellerslie, “I have had success at Ellerslie before but it’s a great place to win a race and on a big day. He was beautifully ridden in the Dunstan, it was nice to see him get over ground and stay a bit.”
On Boxing Day it was the turn of the Reliable Man(GB) gelding Master Painton to shine when he won the Dunstan Feeds 1500 Championship.
Master Painton’s owner Stan Painton was delighted with the win and admits to killing them on the punt that day.
Painton has been racing horses for around 30 years, and only backs his own horses and over the years he has had some good horses all with Matamata trainer Stephen Autridge.
“We are still going pretty good,” said Painton, “he is like a son to me, every horse we have had has won one or two races.”
The feeling is mutual with Stephen Autridge, and he speaks with admiration about Painton who often comes down from Silverdale to stay with him and Lynley.
“He is like a grandfather to me, and I was so pleased to see Master Painton win for him on Boxing Day,” Autridge said.
Master Painton has now won three races and since winning the Dunstan Feeds 1500 Championship has finished fourth in the Listed Kaimai Stakes at Matamata.
Perhaps the best horse Painton has raced was a gelding called Silverdale who won seven races and was placed at Group Two and Three level. Another he raced was Abbey Tralae (Traditionally[USA]-Tralae[AUS]) the dam of Master Painton and she won seven races as well.
She is one of two mares that Painton breeds from after progressing from being an owner to a breeder and all his horses are kept at the Autridge’s property.
“Abbey Tralae is back in foal to Reliable Manand I have a few of his brothers and a sister in various stages of work with Stephen. I am a shareholder in Reliable Man.
“Stephen and Lynley look after all of my horses and my problems,” he quipped.
Abbey Tralae is out of the Snippets(AUS) mare Tralae herself a winner of three races, and a three-quarter sister to the multiple group one winner and sire Spartacus(AUS). She in turn is out of Mavourne (AUS) a stakes winning Cerreto(IRE) mare who produced four other winners.
Besides Abbey Tralae, Aligint (Alamosa- Exquisitely[AUS]) is another mare that Painton raced successfully and is now in the broodmare paddock at the Autridge’s, and is also in foal to Reliable Man as well. -Michelle Saba, NZTBA
