Cricket
Racing
Rugby
League
Motorsport
Football
Golf
Combat Sports
Basketball
Tennis
Other Sports
Sport Nation
Southern Star secures NZB Kiwi slot with Pivotal Ten
Joshua Smith, LOVERACING.NZ News Desk • February 20th, 2025 5:34 pm
Photo: Race Images NZ
The $3.5 million NZB Kiwi (1500m) has received a welcome injection of southern flavour, with exciting filly Pivotal Ten having secured a berth in the Southern Hemisphere’s richest three-year-old race.
Trained and ridden by Samantha Wynne, Pivotal Ten has gained many admirers this term after producing a picket fence form line, including three successive stakes victories, culminating in last Saturday’s dominant 8-3/4 length victory in the Listed Southland Guineas (1400m).
Her connections received plenty of interest from NZB Kiwi slot holders, but it was the Selangor Turf Club that came out on top in securing the services of the daughter of Ten Sovereigns.
“I think she is the most interesting runner in the race and probably the most exciting,” New Zealand Bloodstock (NZB) Director of Business Development and Selangor Turf Club Slot Holder representative Mike Kneebone said.
“She is a filly that I think will work really well for the race and I am thrilled that we waited for as long as we did to get the horse that we really wanted.”
Wynne is looking forward to being a part of the New Zealand Thoroughbred racing industry’s first-ever slot race and is excited by the challenge.
“It is going to be the biggest challenge of my life, but I am ready for it,” she said.
“I know how lucky I am to have her. People wait all their lives for a horse like her, so I am not taking anything for granted.
“She keeps stepping up and doing good things, so I think she deserves a shot, and hopefully we can do the South Island proud.”
While Wynne has ridden at Ellerslie, she has yet to line-up a runner in the North Island, so to do so in the richest race in the country is a bit surreal for the Canterbury horsewoman.
“I have never had a runner in the North Island,” she said. “I rode in the Auckland Cup and had a couple of rides that day. I will be up there a week before the race and I will do as much homework as I can, we will leave no stone unturned.”
The Selangor Turf Club have been great supporters of New Zealand Bloodstock, and the New Zealand racing and breeding industry, and Kneebone said it is great to have their involvement in the inaugural running of the NZB Kiwi after they purchased a slot at a charity event prior to New Zealand Bloodstock’s Ready to Run Sale last year.
Cameron George is excited for what the NZB Kiwi could create for racing in New Zealand | The Guerin Report
“I have worked up there (Malaysia) for a long time and I have said for many years that the Selangor Turf Club are a very forward-thinking club,” Kneebone said.
“They are driven by a wonderful chairman in Tan Sri Richard Cham, and his wife Louise is by his side. Their CEO is Mike Fong and they have been great supporters of New Zealand Bloodstock for a long time.
“When they realised Singapore was finishing (racing last year), they were wanting to get two-year-olds coming up into their racing system so they had new, young horses coming through to attract people to the races, and they chose New Zealand as that place to replenish their horses.
“When they came down for the Ready to Run Sale they were at the welcome party where the auction of the one-off NZB Kiwi slot was going on. Captain Tan Tiang Huat, who is one of the main owners up there, bought the slot, and after it he said, ‘Mike you will need to find us one now and we will come down’.
“There is a group of 20 coming down. They love their racing and they are an on-the-move Club. We can’t thank them enough for the support they have given us, and this might be a good way to reward them.”
Kneebone thinks he has found the Selangor Turf Club the perfect filly for the race and said his attention was drawn to her following her golden run of form in the south.
“I had a number of people mention her to me as a filly on the rise, because I buy a lot of well-bred fillies and mares, and she came on the radar because of that,” he said.
“After her win in the Gore Guineas (Listed, 1335m), it was the times that I was impressed with the most with her and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. She is a lovely, relaxed animal.
“I have spoken with Sam about going the other way around for Ellerslie and she said the filly is such a natural, relaxed talent and she swaps over legs whenever she wants to, and I don’t think that will be a problem for her at all.”
Kneebone said NZB is proud to be the naming sponsor of the race and extending their strong support of the New Zealand racing industry.
“New Zealand Bloodstock have been huge sponsors of New Zealand racing for so long with the Fillies Series and the Pearl Series, general race meetings, and of course the Karaka Millions as well,” he said.
“It is a great fit for us, and it keeps the momentum going that New Zealand racing is heading in at the moment. We just love this concept.”
Pivotal Ten was bred by the late Kevin Hickman under his Valachi Downs banner. She is out of Lady Woodcote, a full-sister to Group One winner Maarek, and is a half-sister to stakes performer Woodcote Lass.
She was offered through Valachi Downs’ 2022 NZB National Weanling Sale where she was purchased by Colin Wightman for $15,000, and was entrusted to the care of Wynne, for whom she has won five of her seven starts, including three at stakes level, and has earned nearly $200,000 in prizemoney.
