Horse racing: Savaglee set for stud career as offers come in for star galloper

Savaglee was an outstanding racehorse and is now set for a stud career. Photo / Kenton Wright

While many of New Zealand racing’s biggest names will be at Ellerslie on Saturday, the reigning Three-Year-Old of the Year will be letting down before the next phase of his career.

Savaglee has been retired after a frustrating last 12 months since he finished second in the Australian Guineas, the closest a New Zealand-trained horse has gone to winning a Group 1 in Australia in the last two years.

The New Zealand 2000 Guineas winner hasn’t raced up to his best in two runs this campaign and Rick Williams, manager of The Oaks Stud who own Savaglee, says the time is right to retire the 4-year-old to stud.

“With a few little issues he has had, I don’t think we were going to get a good shot at our ultimate goal of an Australian Group 1,” Williams said.

“But we showed the Australians how good he was in the Guineas over there on this day last year and we all saw what he did here as a 3-year-old.

“He has been a wonderful horse with an amazing pedigree page and even before we have made this announcement, we have had people making inquiries about him.

“Obviously if we were retaining the stud, he could have stood here [The Oaks] but as people know The Oaks is under offer and we want to give the new purchasers a shot at buying an exciting young stallion prospect.

“But we are still taking offers and fielding other calls because he is a son of Savabeel from a hot family so he is a very commercial horse so we don’t know where he will stand yet.”

Savaglee raced 17 times for seven wins, including that Group 1 New Zealand 2000 Guineas and three Group 2 victories, and was trained by Pam Gerard.

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.