Trelawney treble and a bonus win make for a huge weekend

Trelawney Stud principals Brent and Cherry Taylor had more than enough to celebrate last weekend with a feature race treble and something special to top it off.
It all began on Saturday with a welcome return to form by Vamos Bebe at Matamata, followed a day later by a breakthrough black-type win at Trentham by fellow blue-blood Cheaperthandivorce.
Back in the north at Te Rapa on Labour Monday, untapped talent Pareanui Bay bridged the gap from a debut maiden win to age-group stakes company, and topping the huge weekend off, Trelawney-raised Gold Watch scored his fifth win on end with an awesome return to competition.
Trelawney Stud, located in heartland thoroughbred country on the banks of the Waikato River a short (but strenuous) upstream paddle from Cambridge, gained rapid fame thanks to that mighty stallion Foxbridge when Seton Otway established the nursery in 1930.
Subsequent years saw Trelawney claim credit for seven Melbourne Cup winners amongst a host of graduates that in the modern era include Cox Plate winner and Group One sire Ocean Park.
The days of standing stallions are now long past, the Taylor family’s business model concentrating instead on a select broodmare band matched with the very best stallions on offer in New Zealand and Australia. In a departure from that model, New Zealand 1000 Guineas winner Loire was flown to England for a Southern Hemisphere-time mating with the unbeaten champion and now standout sire Frankel.
The result of that mouth-watering match-up will duly play out, but for the meantime there’s no shortage of action amongst the select racing team carrying the Trelawney livery. Earlier this month Two Illicit, a dual Group Two winner and New Zealand Derby runner-up at three, put a below par four-year-old season behind her with a facile win in the Gr. 3 Red Badge Spring Sprint at Hastings.
Saturday’s Matamata Rating 74 sprint winner Vamos Bebe was denied a black-type win last season due to a feed contamination issue following her Boxing Day victory in the Listed Hallmark Stud Handicap. Complicating matters, she also bled in that race and wasn’t sighted again until this spring, but now that she’s back in form she will be targeting further black-type races with the aim of enhancing her pedigree.
Vamos Bebe is by star stallion I Am Invincible from the Group One winner Hurtle Myrtle, having been bought for $200,000 by the Taylors from breeder Segenhoe Stud at the 2018 Sydney Easter Sale. “She had a minor x-ray issue that we felt we could manage by giving her the time she needed,” explained Cherry Taylor. “After all she’s been through, it’s such a relief to have her back.”
Taylor has a special attachment to Boundless, a daughter of one of the last stallions to stand at Trelawney, Van Nistelrooy, whose nine wins were headed by the Gr. 1 New Zealand Oaks. Trelawney Stud retained a share in Boundless when she was knocked down to Trevor McKee as a yearling, and at the end of her racing career, Brent Taylor was under an ultimatum to buy her back.
“She’s my favourite mare, she was such a good racehorse, so tough,” says Taylor’s wife. “There’s an obvious story behind the naming of Cheaperthandivorce, and now to see her become another big winner for her dam is just a wonderful outcome.”
The daughter of Savabeel was still a long way from the finished article as a three-year-old last season but still managed an unlucky fourth in the New Zealand Oaks. Her weekend success in the Gr. 3 Thompson Handicap at Trentham followed a first-up win at Hastings and she will now be set for feature middle-distance races.
There’s also plenty to look forward to with Monday’s Gr. 2 James & Annie Sarten Memorial Stakes winner Pareanui Bay, whose two wins from as many starts bode well for the future. Named after an idyllic spot in the Bay of Islands, the son of Lonhro and the Group Three-winning Flying Spur mare Okahu Bay was withdrawn from last year’s NZ Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale after an injury prevented him from breezing up. Now his breeders are enjoying what for them is a departure from the norm, racing a gelding.
It was another gelding wearing the Trelawney brand that put the icing on the cake last weekend. That’s Gold Watch, the inspirationally-named five-year-old trained and part-owned by Cherry Taylor’s father Cliff Goss, who kicked off a fresh campaign with another awesome performance at Te Rapa.
That took the Swiss Ace chestnut’s winning sequence to five, continuing the feel-good story of the 90-year-old horseman and his super-charged galloper.
“It’s just a wonderful story,” says Cherry Taylor. “The horse was bred by Emily Mackinnon and was reared here, but when Emily moved to Australia and was getting married, she decided to sell him.
“Dad was looking for a horse to potter around with, so we showed him these three young store geldings in a paddock, didn’t tell him what they were, and the big, raw chestnut was the one he chose.
“To see the pleasure he’s getting from this one horse, how wonderful everyone has been, from Jim Pender who provides the stabling at Tauranga and the others who chip in and help, it means so much to all of us.”