Waipa Trials' Report - Special Day

Te Akau trainers Stephen Autridge & Jamie Richards: premiership winners last season with 104 victories (second in the current premiership with 73 wins), presented horses at the trials on 30 May at Waipa.

Weather: cloudy, track: Heavy10, rail: out 12 metres.

Heat 5: 2YO 850 metres (neck, 7 lengths 58.9)

2 f Reliable Man - Double Babu - Dennis Tan; got back in running and made ground near the rail in the straight.

Co-trainer Stephen Autridge said: “She was having her first trial and provided Dennis (Tan) with his first trial ride. She was slow to begin, taking awhile to find her feet, but she ran home solidly along the inside, poked up through a gap at the winning post, so it was a nice educational day out before she goes for a spell”.

Half-sister to dual Group One winner MacO'reilly (O'Reilly), a grandson of 1000 Guineas (Gr. 1, 1600m) winner and Filly of the Year Plume (Crested Wave), she was purchased by David Ellis for $125,000, from the draft of Ardsley Stud, at the 2016 New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale.

Inheriting the grey colouring of her sire (see main picture), from a mare that has left the winners of 17 races, she is a lovely three-year-old type of filly in the making.

Heat 6: 2YO 850 metres (1 ¾ lengths, neck 59.4)

2 f Rock ‘N' Pop - Doyenne - Wiremu Pinn; was easy in the early stages to settle at the back of the field, and tracked boldly through a gap at the 200 metres to finish third.

“She travelled nicely in behind them and after finding a gap in the straight she quickened up well,” Autridge said. “I was very happy with the run and being a three-year-old type she will most likely go out for a spell now.

Her dam, Doyenne (Kilimanjaro), was trained by Mark Walker to win six races. After gaining a start in the New Zealand Oaks (Gr. 1, 2400m), she returned as a four-year-old to win three times up to 2000 metres and continued her good form at five to register two wins and a stakes' placed second in the Spring Classic (Listed, 2000m) at Riccarton.

The meeting was notable for giving Te Akau apprentice Dennis Tan his first trial ride, following in the footsteps of Wiremu Pinn who commenced a week earlier at the Taupo trials.

Tan was working for Te Akau trainer Mark Walker, in Singapore, and is now apprenticed to Stephen Autridge & Jamie Richards in Matamata.

“He's a lovely young guy and very polite, and shows plenty of potential,” Autridge said. “His horse got back a bit, and she was having her first trial too, but he did a good job to have her cut the corner, went to the fence and through a nice tight gap near the rail and both horse and rider would have learnt plenty. And that's what these trials are all about.

“It's the right time of the year for these boys to get some trial rides and they need twenty under their belt to gain a race day licence.”

Singaporean, Tan (24) qualified as a chef and did two years' compulsory National Service before joining the stables of Mark Walker.

“I was working in a 4-Star Japanese Restaurant in a hotel and after NS I joined Mark Walker in 2014,” Tan said.

“It was more of an interest to cook but not as a career. I had some friends that were riding track work and because I'm small too, not heavy at all, I thought I would give that a try.

“New Zealand is a great place for me to learn and there is a lot of opportunity at Te Akau to keep improving.  Steve (Autridge) and the riding master (Noel Harris) were happy with my ride today, and I just want to keep doing better.”