Ambitious Dragon recording one of his 13 wins in Hong Kong.
AZ half-sister to dual Hong Kong horse of the year Ambitious Dragon was among 21 weanlings on display at last Sunday's annual Hawke's Bay/Poverty Bay Thoroughbred Breeders Association's foal walk in Hawke's Bay.
A crowd of close to 100 people attended the walk, which took in five properties.
A filly by Rock 'N' Pop, out of Golden Gamble, was one of eight weanlings on show at Guy and Brigid Lowry's Okawa property on Kawera Rd.
The filly is the 10th living foal out of the Oregon mare Golden Gamble and bred by Guy Lowry's father Pat, who lives in Taupo.
Golden Gamble has had seven foals to race and six of them have been winners. The undoubted star has been Ambitious Dragon, who was the winner of 13 races and more than HK$58million ($10.9m) in stakes money.
The son of Pins included the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup and Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Mile among his seven black type victories and took out the title of Hong Kong Horse of the Year in both the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons.
Golden Gamble is also the dam of Packing Dragon (by Mastercraftsman), who is the winner of eight races and also exciting Chopin's Fantaisie, who is a full-brother to Packing Dragon and has won six races from eight starts in Singapore.
Pat Lowry said he is likely to retain the Rock 'N' Pop filly and he presently has a 2-year-old full-sister to Ambitious Dragon in work in the Hastings stable of Guy Lowry and Grant Cullen.
He added that Golden Gamble is now in foal to new season sire Tivaci, who stands at Waikato Stud.
Ambitious Dragon was also on show at the Lowry property and in the same yard as the weanlings. He now acts as a father figure to the young horses, albeit a rather bossy one.
"He wants to eat all the time and pushes all of the young ones out of the road until he's had his fill," Brigid said.
The other weanlings on display at the Lowry property were colts by Pour Moi out of Pearls, Shamexpress out of Stepping Out, Pins out of Gold, Swiss Ace out of Midnight Molly, Super Easy out of Flare, Super Easy out of All In Grace and a filly by Darci Brahma out of Diplomacy.
The Pour Moi colt is from a great Okawa Stud breed, with his fifth dam being the outstanding galloper Key. She was the winner of 16 races and the top rated filly on the 1961-62 New Zealand Three-year-old Free Handicap.
A yearling colt by Showcasing out of Pearls sold at this year's Karaka yearling sales for $80,000.
The Swiss Ace-Midnight Molly colt, although slightly smaller than some of the others, was a nice compact weanling and was said to be Guy Lowry's pick of his crop.
Chris Russell's stud farm on Valley Road, Raukawa, was the next property visited where there were three weanlings paraded, a colt by Reliable Man out of Dorotea Dior, a colt by Makfi out of Donna Beel and a filly by Niagara out of Donna Jazz.
The Reliable Man colt is out of the Redoute's Choice mare Dorotea Dior, who was the winner of two races and has left the winners O'Reilly's Choice and Donna Beel.
Donna Beel, the dam of the Makfi colt, was a winner at 1200m and is a daughter of Zabeel.
Mike Newrick's property at Paki Paki was next. He is a relative newcomer to thoroughbred breeding but had three well grown weanlings on show, a colt by Rock 'N' Pop out of Red Carpet, a colt by Pentire out of Danareason and a filly by Per Incanto out of Kaybebe.
The two colts will be put up for sale with the Rock 'N' Pop youngster being out of a three-quarter sister to the Group 1 winning mare Legs and the colt, by Pentire, is closely related to the Waikato Cup winner Ultimate Aim.
Gary and Raewyn Quinn's property in Middle Road was the fourth stop where they paraded a strongly built colt by Iffraaj out of the Ready At Eight and a filly by Reliable Man out of Ididit.
The Iffraaj colt is out of a More Than Ready mare and from the family of the top sprinter Bawalaksana, winner of both the Group 1 Telegraph Handicap and Group 1 Railway Sprint.
Waimarama-based John Moeke also brought in two weanlings to the Quinn's property to put on show, a filly by He's Remarkable out of the Jungle Pocket mare Jane and a colt by Rios out of the Fast 'N' Famous mare Second Wife.
John Bary's stables in Mutiny Rd was the final stop where three weanlings were on display, a colt by Shamexpress out of Stellardelmar, a colt by Mongolian Khan out of Galileo Queen and a colt by Darci Brahma out of Traditional Bride.
The Shamexpress colt was clearly the biggest of the 21 yearlings shown on the day.
He was an early foal, being born on August 30, but was also very strongly built and a good mover. He was bred by well known Hawke's Bay identity Ivan Grieve, who intends keeping the colt to race.
Super day for Shinko King
The progeny of deceased stallion Shinko King had a stellar day last Saturday, with Megablast taking out the Listed Caloundra Cup (2400m), while Monarch Chimes and Justa Charlie won the two feature jumps races at Hastings.
Novara Park manager Ray Knight stood Shinko King at Ashwell Farm and is enjoying watching the continued success of his progeny.
"He was always a special horse, he was a very good racehorse and he probably didn't get the patronage at stud we would have liked," Knight said.
"He's just made every post a winner and it's still going on. It's lovely to see."
Shinko King was a dual stakes winner on the track before he retired to stud in Japan and subsequently shuttled to Ray Knight's Ashwell Farm in New Zealand.
"He was the right horse in the wrong place," Knight said.
"The Japanese don't really support foreign-bred horses. He was on a smaller farm over there and didn't get a lot of opportunities, although he did leave a lot of winners over there.
"We did a deal whereby he shuttled out here. I had him here for two seasons and when Mark Todd's filly Bramble Rose was starting to show a bit, I managed at that stage to buy him and syndicate him and he stayed here (in New Zealand) after that."
Bramble Rose is one of six Group 1 winners sired by Shinko King, while he has left a further 13 stakes winners, including the Nigel Tiley-trained Megablast, who took his stakes win tally to two on the weekend.
Shinko King moved on to Paxton Park toward the end of his stud career where he eventually succumbed to laminitis.
Shinko King has become well-known for his ability to leave good jumpers, and that was reinforced on the weekend when he sired the winners of the two feature Hawke's Bay jumps races.
He not only sired the Hawke's Bay Hurdles winner Monarch Chimes but also produced the runner up No Change.
Monarch Chimes, could return to Victoria to target further jumping spoils after placing in both of his starts at Warrnambool in autumn.
Marsh pair now in Aussie
The former Stephen Marsh-trained duo Pierrocity and I Am Queen have joined Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young's Cranbourne stable in the hope of gaining black type.
Their owner, Karapiro dairy farmer Roger Blunt, said it was a tough decision to send his fillies to Australia, but his hand was forced due to the current track conditions and lucrative prizemoney on offer in Victoria.
From the outset we said if we had horses that were good enough to go to Australia, that was where we were intending to go with them," he said.
"Stephen had done a great job in prepping them, we had reasonably high hopes for one of them recently and the weather has been totally against them.
"The decision to send them both to Australia was a really big call. Hopefully they are good enough to make it there. If they are not, then we can easily bring them home."
Both fillies were bought by Blunt with a breeding career in mind, and both have showed enough promise in their 3-year-old seasons to date.
I Am Queen holds a nomination for tomorrow's Listed A.R. Creswick Series Final (1200m) at Flemington where the likely opposition includes highly-rated sprinter Nature Strip.
Singapore strike for Shamexpress
Windsor Park Stud stallion Shamexpress is on the board in Singapore.
The son of O'Reilly enjoyed success with his first representative there on Sunday when Mr Hooper made the perfect start to his career with victory over 1200m for trainer Jamie Peters.
"He won on raw ability. He will come on by a huge amount from the run," he said.
Mr Hooper is the sixth individual winner from 13 starters for Shamexpress, with his first crop also featuring three stakes performers.
Peters also produced the Showcasing 3-year-old Mr Hanks to win for the fourth time in his career. He had three starts last season from Nigel Tiley's Pukekohe stable and finished runner-up in the Murdoch Newell Stakes (1100m).
Grylls back to chase stakes dream
Bridget Grylls has returned home with a clear career goal in mind.
"I felt the time was right to come back and I'd love to get on some fast horses and win a black type race here," she said.
Grylls headed across the Tasman during the 2013-14 season and rode 138 winners during her spell in Queensland.
"I enjoyed it there and got a lot of support from some good trainers, it was a great experience and I'm a better rider now," she said.
Grylls rode 67 New Zealand winners before her departure, beginning her apprenticeship at Awapuni with Lisa Latta before transferring to the Matamata stable of Ken and Bev Kelso.
She has returned to her home town of Te Awamutu, but is considering a future move to Cambridge.