It really does feel a world away from home as a New Zealander on the grounds at Royal Ascot. The pomp and ceremony is not exactly what we are accustomed to at Ellerslie racecourse, let alone Kumara or Ruakaka.
Despite the nautical miles and obvious gulf in royal tradition, it’s not like New Zealand hasn’t had a significant footprint at Royal Ascot through history and still do to this day.
The 1958 story of staying legend Bali Ha’i is a remarkable one starting when his owner Sir Ernest Davis gifted the horse to the Queen Mother on a trip of hers to New Zealand and Trentham Racecourse.
Accepting the generous gift this set up an amazing Royal racing story featuring one of the first internationals from New Zealand to find success on the global stage
Bali Ha’i was entered for the Queen Alexandra Stakes in ‘59, pulling off a historic triumph, creating a famous Royal victory in the colours of the Queen Mother and an incredible result for New Zealand.
In more recent years we have had Enzo’s Lad for the Pitmans fly New Zealand’s flag in the King’s Stand, a huge effort by the south islanders to get their star sprinter here for his tilt.
Of course Nature Strip’s triumph felt like a victory for New Zealand in 2022 when he won the same race. Trained and ridden by the Sydney based Chris Waller and James McDonald, Sir Steve Hansen also sharing in the ownership of the sprinting ace.
GO RACING GO GLOBAL
For the second year in a row, New Zealand-based syndicators Go Racing have had a runner at the famed Royal Ascot meeting.
Zoustar filly Je Zous, trained by Joseph O’Brien, took on the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes over 2400 metres today acquitting herself admirably with a hard fought fifth among some elite company.
Co-founder of Go Racing Pat Vinaccia made the long journey with twelve of the filly’s owners from New Zealand for their tilt at the big time and when I caught up with him it was easy to see why they’d done it.
“I think Royal Ascot is the pinnacle of racing – you just can’t describe it to people, these owners will go back to New Zealand and talk about and it will stay with them forever,” Vinaccia said.
“We’ve managed to find some great people with Stuart Boman from Blanford and Joseph O’Brien who’s racing royalty in this part of the world.“
Asked whether this was it for Go Racing’s Royal Ascot dabble Vinaccia was emphatic.
“We’ll just keep going, we’ve got a great team around us and we’ve only been doing it for two years and we’ve had two runners.”
The business model of buying the staying juveniles in the north to run them at Ascot then travel them south is a sound one.
Equally, with Asfoora’s booming triumph this year in the King Charles Stakes emphasising the ability of Australian sprinters to win at the famous meeting, it would seem inevitable more raiders from down under will look to Royal Ascot as a viable international raid.
With New Zealand’s sprinting ranks in clear ascension, don’t be surprised to see the bigger barns looking for the right horse to have their royal moment in the sun in coming years. It’s only fair to wonder what sort of mess Imperatriz would have made of the same field Asfoora took on if she had an opportunity.
Listen to the full interview with Pat Vinaccia: