Ultimate Habit survived the raging torrent of Cyclone Gabrielle floodwaters by sheer guts. Now she's run the race of her life.
Ultimate Habit, a horse that was swimming for her life three years ago, ran the race of her life at Trentham last Saturday to win the Group 2 $175,000 Jennian Homes Lowland Stakes.
The three-year-old filly was bred by Hawke’s Bay couple Graham and Isabell Roddick at their Swamp Rd property, near Puketapu.
When Cyclone Gabrielle struck in February 2023, the Roddicks’ property was quickly inundated with deep flood waters, a raging torrent running through their paddocks that demolished buildings and fences.
Those paddocks housed three broodmares, three foals and two two-year-olds who were quickly under threat of being submerged and swept away.
One of those foals was Ultimate Habit, a filly by Embellish out of the Bachelor Duke mare Queens Habit, who survived the ordeal by sheer guts and with the help of the Roddicks’ close neighbour, Reece Roberts.
“Reece went in with his kayak and rounded the horses up and got them to swim over the broken fences and back to dry land,” Isabell Roddick said.
“He was an absolute hero, and without him we probably would have lost the lot.”
The horses managed to get to a hill section, where they stayed for several days, while the Roddicks were left with a lake surrounding their house.
“We couldn’t go anywhere,” Isabell recalled.
“I remember, at one stage, looking out the window and thinking we have lost the lot, all the horses and the property.”
When the floodwaters subsided enough, the Roddicks then had to find agistment facilities for their horses and Isabell said they would be forever grateful to their good friend Roz Rowe, who offered them a paddock where all the horses stayed for the next three months.
The Embellish filly was then sent to a northern property for 10 months before New Plymouth trainer Robbie Patterson took her into his stable, where she is now based.
Ultimate Habit was still a maiden and having only her fourth start when she lined up in Saturday’s 2100m feature.
She had shown a glimpse of her ability when finishing sixth in the Group 3 $200,000 Desert Gold Stakes (1600m) at Trentham on January 17.
That run gave Patterson the confidence to step her up in distance and take on race winners and more experienced horses last Saturday.
The filly certainly had to be good to win as she only had four horses behind her, in a strung-out field, for most of the race.
Rider Craig Grylls started to improve her position starting the last 600m, but she was the widest horse rounding the home turn and was still giving the leaders a big head start.
When Grylls gave her a crack with the whip half-way up the home straight, Ultimate Habit wanted to lay in but once he changed the whip over to his left hand she straightened up and showed great acceleration to score a dominant length win.
Patterson prepared Leica Lucy to win last year’s Lowland Stakes before she went on to win the Group 1 New Zealand Oaks (2400m) and he is now looking to try and complete the same double with a late entry fee now being paid to get Ultimate Habit into the Oaks, run at Ellerslie on February 21.
“We are definitely going to go to the Oaks on that,” Patterson said after Saturday’s win. “It is going to be a lot trickier going the other way around at Ellerslie, but she is such a laidback filly.”
Ultimate Habit races in the Roddicks’ purple and yellow colours and they have retained a racing share in the filly along with another Hawke’s Bay couple, Barbara Nonu and Adrian Wilson.
Patterson arranged for several other Taranaki people to take a share and the filly has now earned more than $107,000 in prize money.
Isabell Roddick bred the champion galloper Rough Habit and Ultimate Habit is closely related to that 11-time Group 1 winner.
Rough Habit was out of the Ashabit mare Certain Habit, who was the grandam of Queens Habit.
It is also the family of the Group 1 winners Molly Bloom and Addictive Habit and Group 1 performer Citi Habit.
Rough Habit raced in the Roddicks’ colours in his early career, winning his first race at Waipukurau before going on to take out the Queensland Derby (2400m) the following year. He was then sold and went on to become one New Zealand’s most successful thoroughbreds of the modern era.
When the Roddicks were forced to remove all of their bloodstock from their flooded property, they sent Ultimate Habit’s dam, Queens Habit, to Hawke’s Bay-based Okawa Stud, where she was mated with Rock ‘N’ Pop.
The resultant foal is a colt and so they now have a yearling half-brother to Ultimate Habit coming on.
They also have two other yearlings from the Certain Habit family, a colt by King Of Comedy out of On Eagle Wins and a filly by Wrote out of Flying Habit, which they intend to syndicate and race.
Cup success part of a significant week for HB jockey
Hawke’s Bay jockey Kate Hercock capped a truly memorable week when she posted the most important win of her career aboard outsider Manzor Blue in last Saturday’s Group 3 $400,000 Wellington Cup.
Three days earlier, Hercock, who juggles a successful riding career with training a small team of thoroughbreds from her Otane base, trained and rode Zaravela to an emotionally-charged win in a 1650m maiden race at Waverley.
Zaravela deserved the win after recording nine minor placings from her previous 23 starts but, more importantly, the six-year-old Time Test mare was co-bred and co-owned by Hercock’s late partner Danny Champion, who died suddenly in November 2024.
Champion was a former jumps jockey who turned his hand to training and produced 139 winners, most of them when he was based in the Canterbury area.
He made the move to join Hercock in Hawke’s Bay in early 2024 and they produced several winners together in a short space of time.
Zaravela was a horse Champion brought with him when he made the move north, the mare having been placed several times on South Island tracks.
She is out of the Saperavi mare Orovela, who Champion trained to win the 2013 Listed Canterbury Belle Stakes (1200m) at Riccarton.
“She [Zaravela] was Danny’s pride and joy,” Hercock said after the mare’s win.
“She had gone some very good races and been a bit unlucky so it was good to see her get one.”
Hercock started race-riding back in the 1994-95 racing season but had a 10-year injury-enforced break from 2010 to 2020.
She has been kicking home a steady stream of winners since returning and is presently in the top 15 on the Jockeys’ Premiership for this season.
She got a big thrill when teaming up with Marotiri Molly to win the Group 2 $150,000 Manawatu Challenge Stakes (1400m) at Trentham, in December 2024, but adding her name to the winners’ list in the prestigious and time-honoured Wellington Cup is certainly the highlight of her career to date.
She was also delighted that she got to share her Wellington Cup success with Awapuni trainer Lisa Latta, who has been one of her biggest supporters.
Hercock has been Manzor Blue’s regular rider for the past 12 months and has been aboard the Latta-trained mare in all three of her wins.
“Although she’d only won two, she’s such an honest little mare,” Hercock said.
“Lisa said to me what about the Wellington Cup and I said I’m not riding anything else. I’ll stick with her and I’m not getting off.
“I always thought she’d get the two miles.”
The five-year-old daughter of Almanzor had previously only raced up to Rating 75 grade and punters thought the step up to Cup class was a bridge too far, letting her drift out to an 86 to 1 outsider.
From her outside draw she was taken straight to the back by Hercock and was a clear last for the first half of the race but enjoying an economical trip in the marathon 3200m event.
Turning for home, the pair had a wall of horses in front of them, but Hercock was able to weave a passage through the pack and Manzor Blue stuck her head in front with 50m to go and held on to her advantage to win by a short neck over Crouch, with a further half-length back to her stablemate Be Real in third.
“I said to Lisa if she gets back we will ride her for luck,” Hercock said. “From about the half mile we were getting in carnage, at the 600m we were in a lot more carnage, and then I rolled back to the inside and she has got such a phenomenal turn of foot on her day.”
Latta said Manzor Blue had been plagued by back problems this season and she was pleased to overcome them and build towards the Wellington Cup, with Hercock’s advice proving to be the difference of her pressing on towards the Trentham feature.
“She only ran sixth here a fortnight ago and I said to Kate ‘should we press on to the Wellington Cup?’ And she said ‘press on, I think she’s back’.” Latta said.
Manzor Blue carried New Zealand syndicator Go Racing’s silks to victory and Latta was pleased to get the result for her loyal clients.
“Go Racing has been fantastically loyal to me,” Latta said. “They do a fantastic job syndicating their horses. The last big winner I had for them was Sentimental Miss when she won the 2019 New Zealand Oaks.”
Latta believes Manzor Blue has a bright future among New Zealand’s staying ranks.
“She is only a five-year-old mare, she has got it all in front of her,” she said. “We have ironed out a lot of niggles and learned a lot about her this year.”
Bred by Milan Park principal Tony Rider, Manzor Blue is out of Zabeel mare Turquoise Coast, a half-sister to Group 3 winner Island Life.
Manzor Blue was offered at the 2022 Karaka yearling sales where she was purchased by Go Racing for $130,000 and has now earned just shy of $280,000 in prizemoney.