Winner: Perlino 100 Season Wins

Registering the 100th win this season for premiership leading trainers Mark Walker & Sam Bergerson, Perlino (3 f Super Seth – Palomino, by Exceed and Excel) proved ‘tough as teak’ in the $40,000 Momentum Consulting Rating 65 1600 metres on Saturday at Riccarton.

The reigning Champion Trainers kept alive an unbeaten six-year streak for the stable when winning their 16th Training Premiership title in the 2024/25 season, recording 131 wins while establishing a new record of $9.27 million in prize money, and the recent century was the sixth on end for Te Akau. 

The title last season was also marked by an incredible milestone of 100 Group One wins for Te Akau, when the colt Return To Conquer (Snitzel), now standing at Waikato Stud, won the Group 1 Sistema Stakes (1200m). 

Former Te Akau trainer Jamie Richards set a season record of 160 wins in 2020/21, a year before going to train in Hong Kong, and when Mark Walker returned (2022) from training for Te Akau in Singapore, he created what could well be an unassailable new record 203 wins in 2022/23.

On a roll with 17 wins in the first 20 days of March, the century tally for the stable this season has included 14 stakes' wins, including Origin Of Love becoming the 99th win on the same day in the Group 2 Wellington Guineas (1600m) at Trentham.

An easy Maiden 1600-metre winner by seven and a half lengths on 4 February at Riccarton, Perlino sustained a good effort after racing three-wide in the Listed Dunedin Guineas (1600m) on 28 February at Wingatui. On Saturday she was back in class, had weight relief to 54.5kg, and while bringing the right form to rate a top three chance, she required luck from the outside gate (15).

It was a positive ride by Te Akau apprentice Hayley Hassman (a2), who, a day beforehand at Pukekohe, recorded her 50th career win aboard Savoir Faire (Savabeel).

Faced with a variety of options, Hassman had Perlino away well to go forward three-wide near the pace, levelled in front at the 300m, and rather than yield when entitled to over the concluding stages, she instead found more to draw away. 

It was the type of performance, displaying grit and determination, that has become synonymous with fillies by Super Seth (Dundeel). By the same sire, Te Akau also bought and train reigning Champion Two-Year-Old La Dorada, who exercised similar measures of tenacity to win the Group 1 Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes, Group 2 Matamata Breeders’ Stakes, and Karaka Millions 2YO last season.

“She had to do it tough today, three-wide from the outside draw and she sustained a long, long, run to win,” Walker said.

“She’s gone to a new level down south in our stable at Riccarton. She was going the right way, anyway, but recorded a big win at her third start, which earned her a run in the Dunedin Guineas, and now she’s won again.

“It was a big effort to win again today, given the run she got, so we will look for another black type opportunity with her. 

“Also, well done to all the team. That was the 100th win this season for stable, and both stables in New Zealand can be very proud of how well they’re going.”

On Good3 footing, Perlino ran 1600 metres in 1:35.8, last 600m in 35 (approx.), and paid $2.90 & $1.80 on the NZ TAB tote.

Owned by the Te Akau Etched in Gold Racing Partnership (Mgr: Karyn Fenton-Ellis MNZM), Perlino was purchased by David Ellis CNZM for $120,000 at the Karaka 2024 Book 1 Sale, from the draft of Curraghmore Stud. 

“It’s great to see another Super Seth filly in the stable going so well and it really was a big effort to win today,” Ellis said. 

“She’s by what is becoming a terrific sire, now sold to stand at Coolmore in Australia, and his credentials were certainly one of the reasons why we bought her, plus the dam side blood is very strong, being out of a mare by Exceed and Excel and the grand-dam by Champion Broodmare Sire Encosta de Lago.”

Her dam Palomino (Exceed and Excel) is a half-sister to stakes' winner Malice (Teofilo), from the family of four-time Group One winner Criterion (Sebring) and Comin’ Through (Fastnet Rock).

Perlino has a bloodline cross of breed-shaping sire Danehill (Danzig), on the dam line of Super Seth and sire line Palomino. 

Ellis was also thrilled that Perlino brought up the 100th win for the stable this season, saying: “It’s a special milestone that we’ve managed to achieve now for quite a few years in a row.

“I remember Mark Walker set a new benchmark for wins when he trained 108 in the 2009/10 season, eclipsing the previous seventeen-year-old record, which was a very proud moment for Te Akau and we’ve kept it going.

“Karyn and I are very proud on every level. We’re proud of the horses we’ve bought and syndicated, the horses we train for other owners and breeders that support Te Akau, and all our wonderful team, here at the farm, and the stables in Matamata, Riccarton, and Cranbourne.

“These people give everything they’ve got to the racing industry and looking after the horses, and from all of us and all our great owners I’d like to pass on congratulations.”

Perlino was strapped by Peter Van Rooyen.

Photo credit - Ajay Berry - www.raceimages.co.nz