Horse racing: Belclare aims for back-to-back Westbury Classic wins at Ellerslie

Belclare. Photo / Peter Rubery

Belclare loves Ellerslie so much, she keeps coming back even when she was supposed to be long gone.

The 7-year-old Awapuni mare returns north for the $600,000 Westbury Classic at TAB Karaka Millions night on Saturday, but while she won the race last year, this is anything but your standard title defence.

Belclare not only won this race in 2024 but the NZ Breeders Stakes at Ellerslie in March, defending a title she won at Pukekohe the year before.

But when Belclare left trainer Lisa Latta’s stables soon after the Breeders win, it was supposed to be for good.

Belclare was flown to a broodmare sale on the Gold Coast but failed to reach her reserve so her connections retained her, sending her to ex-pat Kiwi trainer Bjorn Baker.

That might have seemed a brave call with a veteran mare, but then again this has been the season of the 7-year-old super-mares: Ask Via Sistina and Bella Nipotina.

From her new Sydney home, Belclare won both the A$2million Invitation and the A$300,000 Hot Danish before having no joy in the Railway in Perth in late November.

Now the mare – who was supposed to be retired and in foal, who wasn’t sold and has won over $1m since – has returned home, via Perth, to Latta.

“She seems really happy and is an easy mare to train,” Latta explains for anybody concerned about Belclare’s adventurous last six months.

“The key to her is dry tracks, which is one reason she loves the new Ellerslie.”

Another is Belclare likes to jump and run hard – awfully difficult weapons to defuse on a fast Ellerslie.

Belclare pleased Latta in a trial at Foxton last week and her biggest issue on Saturday could be weight, as she has won a lot of serious races in the last 12 months.

There is also no lack of depth, as well as a surprise, in the Westbury entries.

Group 1 winner Skew Wiff steps up to 1400m after her fourth in a stacked Telegraph at Trentham three weeks ago, while Town Cryer and Faraglioni, who finished second to Belclare in her two major Ellerslie triumphs last season, return, as does impressive last-start course winner Acquarello.

The shock entry is the Chris Waller-trained Konasana, who won the Group 3 Belle Of The Turf at Wyong on December 31 last-start and carrying a 59kg topweight. The r-year-old daughter of Dundeel has winning form at 1400m but was even tried up to 2000m early in her 3-year-old season to see if she was an Oaks contender.

She brings not only intrigue but some Waller glamour to the night, and means the Westbury has some of the most diverse formlines of Saturday’s six black-type races.

In other Karaka Millions news, talented 3-year-old Full Force, which finished third in the KM Two-Year-Old last season, was withdrawn from Saturday’s $1.5m Three-Year-Old just before entry time yesterday after being sold to Hong Kong.

Michael Guerin wrote his first nationally published racing articles while still in school and started writing about horse racing and the gambling industry for the Herald as a 20-year-old in 1990. He became the Herald’s Racing Editor in 1995 and covers the world’s biggest horse racing carnivals.