Exciting filly Miss Labasa is in full stride under the urgings of jockey Johnathan Parkes
Hastings stables had another stellar day at the Tauherenikau meeting on Thursday last week, winning half of the eight race card.
John Bary produced two impressive winners in The Tailors Niece and Miss Labasa while the partnership of Guy Lowry and Grant Cullen also brought up a brace of wins with Performante and Makeitrain.
The Tailors Niece lived up to her outstanding breeding with a dominant 1-3/4 length victory in the 1000m 2-year-old race. The Showcasing filly was the slowest to begin in the five horse field but quickly rushed up to sit outside the leader and raced clear in the home straight.
The Tailors Niece was bred by prominent thoroughbred owner-breeder Kevin Hickman and is closely related to Savile Row, who won three races in his colours and was also placed second in the Group 1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas.
Trainer Bary said The Tailors Niece is now likely to contest the Listed $50,000 Wellesley Stakes (1000m) at Trentham on October 27 and the big filly gives every indication that she will develop into an even better three-year-old next season.
Miss Labasa looks a 3-year-old headed for much bigger things when she scored a runaway 3-1/4 length win on debut in the maiden three-year-old race over 1400m.
The daughter of Swiss Ace tracked the pacemaking Mohaka to the home turn before taking over and raced right away in the concluding stages to win with plenty in reserve.
Miss Labasa is owned by Auckland's Narendra Balia, who has been a long time client of John Bary's stable.
He paid $30,000 for the filly at the select session of the 2017 Karaka yearling sales and she is a half-sister to the stakes placed Starvoia while her second dam is the South Australian Oaks winner Dowry.
Trainers Guy Lowry and Grant Cullen have some ambitious plans for Performante later this season if the 3-year-old continues to progress.
The Super Easy gelding scored a dominant 1-3/4 length maiden victory over 1400m at Tauherenikau and his trainers are now aiming him at some of the three-year-old classics next season.
"He is now having a bit of a quiet time but we think he is a very promising horse and, who knows, he might even turn out to be a New Zealand Derby contender," co-trainer Guy Lowry said.
Performante was having his third start after recording two seventh placings at Hastings back in April.
He is owned by his Cambridge breeder Tony Rider and is out of the Occidental Tourist mare Today Not Tomorrow, whose only win was at 2040m.
Makeitrain fulfilled the early promise she showed with a strong maiden win over 1600m at Tauherenikau.
The daughter of Niagara was having her eighth start with her previous best placings being two good fifths, in the spring of last year.
The 4-year-old certainly had to produce a huge effort to win last week.
After being slow away and then caught three-wide at the tail of the field jockey Samantha Collett decided to send the mare on a lightning move around the field from about the 700m mark and they ranged up three-wide to challenge the leaders on the home turn.
Such an energy sapping move would have dulled the finishing burst of most horses but Makeitrain maintained a strong run and was getting right away from her rivals as she crossed the line 2-1/4 lengths clear.
Makeitrain is raced by the Rain Syndicate, a large group of Hawke's Bay people and some are first time owners.
The syndicate is managed by Nicola Sutherland, who co-bred the mare with four others in the syndicate, Andrew and Kathy Heynes and Kevin and Cristine Baylis. The other members are Erik and Christine Chilton, Simon and Melissa Turner, Trevor Spencer, George and Karen Bulled, Anton Bauerfeind and Frank and Dawn Grantham.
Makeitrain was one of only two foals produced by the Chief Bearhart mare Tycoon Miss, a horse that Guy Lowry trained to win two races in a row in January 2007.
Lowry said this week Makeitrain has come through her win in good order and will start next in a Rating 65 race over 1600m at Waipukurau next Thursday.
Australian-bred mare Pukalee is proving to be a successful producer for her Hastings owner Ian Holloway.
The Royal Academy mare produced her third winner from four foals to race when Ivan Kane took out a 1400m maiden race at Riccarton on October 6.
The 4-year-old Nadeem gelding, trained at Timaru by Michael Daly, was having his fourth start after recording a third, a fourth and a fifth from his previous three runs.
Holloway races Ivan Kane with a group that includes two close friends and brothers Alan Bartlett (Havelock North) and Rowland Bartlett (Kapiti Coast).
"The others all live down in Wellington," Holloway said this week.
He added that Pukalee has been a worthwhile investment.
"I sold the first foal out of her by Sir Percy and he went to Singapore where he was called Numero Uno and won three races," he said.
"She then produced Verna Audrey who also won three races and has now been retired to stud. The next foal was Rosie Jane who was unplaced and the next one has been Ivan Kane."
Holloway now has an Alamosa yearling filly out of Pukalee and the mare has just produced another colt foal by Shocking.
"She is now going to be served by Per Incanto this year," Holloway added.
Ivan Kane is expected to line up next in a Rating 65 race over 1600m at Riccarton tomorrow week.
Alan Jones, one of the most successful Hastings-based jockeys of the 1960s, died last week aged 79.
A natural lightweight, Alan Jones only rode in races for 12 years but in that time he kicked home no fewer than 385 winners.
He was the equal leading apprentice in the country for one season and the outright winner the following year and was the Hawke's Bay District's leading apprentice for three years in a row from 1956 to 1959.
Alan Jones rode in the days when there were very few midweek race meetings and was up against some of the household names at that time, the likes of Bill Broughton, Bill Aitken, Vic Sellars, Bob and Bill Skelton, Jack Mudford and Grenville Hughes.
But he more than held his own, rarely chalking up less than 30 wins a season until the time he retired.
He had the distinction of riding his first and last winners on the same course, at Waipukurau, and also had the honour of riding the last winner on the old Napier Park racecourse at Greenmeadows.
That was on June 6, 1960, and he took out the Newstead Handicap on Prince Delaware. The Napier Park Racing Club then transferred their meetings to the Hastings track.
Alan Jones was born in Taihape and was one of 12 children.
He rode ponies before he was 5 and later did extremely well in the show ring.
He started out working for Marton trainer Darkie Coyle who advised him to move to the much busier training centre at Hastings where he took up an apprenticeship with former jumps jockey Frank Power.
His first win was aboard Dearwood at Waipukurau in October 1956 and his second came just a week later when he partnered Ambition to victory in the Shorts Handicap at Trentham.
That Trentham success gave the young apprentice one of his biggest thrills as he managed to stave off a late challenge by Jack Mudford's mount Barobar, with Nereis, ridden by Grenville Hughes, finishing third.
The first of Alan Jones' many major successes came in the 1959 Hawke's Bay Guineas, a race he was to win three times in total.
He took out the 1959 feature on Sol d'Or and then recorded back-to-back wins aboard Rio in 1964 and Devastation in 1965.
He won many big races on Rio and Devastation and found it hard to separate them when naming the best horse he ever rode.
He always held a soft spot for Devastation, trained by Otaki's Ken Thomson, as he also won the 1965 Wellington Guineas on the colt along with the Churchill Stakes at Riccarton and North Island Challenge Stakes at Trentham.
Rio was trained at Hastings by Keith Couper and Jones was also aboard the My Pal colt in three other big wins, the Wellesley Stakes at Trentham, Manawatu Sires' Produce Stakes and Manawatu Challenge Stakes.
He also rated Re Echo as one of the best horses he rode and won both the Wanganui and Waverley Cups on him while his other major wins as a jockey included the 1962 Manawatu Cup on Lavish Countess, the 1968 Awapuni Gold Cup on Impetus and the 1967 Wellesley Stakes on Floodlit.
He rode four winners in the one day at Tauherenikau, Feilding and Napier Park and kicked home five on an eight race programme at Hastings on December 29, 1962.
Three of those winners were trained by Hastings-based Davey Jones and the pair struck up a successful partnership, winning races with such notable horses as Froth, Dalvui, Gillin, Destriere and High Disdain.
"Alan was a top rider. He had good hands, and horses relaxed and settled better for him than most riders I can recall," Davey Jones once said.
Alan Jones was still in winning form when he became disillusioned with racing and decided to give it all away.
He rode his last winner, Floodlit, at Waipukurau in October 1968, and his decision to retire after one more ride that day came as a shock to many.
He then worked as a butcher in Hastings for many years and, although he liked a small bet on the horses, he rarely attended race meetings again.