"She'll go to Tauherenikau next and then hopefully the Hawke's Bay Cup. It is something John and one of her owners, Wayne Chittick, have thought about for a while."
Bary has already trained a Hawke's Bay Cup winner as he saddled up Survived to take out the Hastings feature in 2013 while Chittick was the trainer of Millenium Star, whom he raced with his brothers Allan and Brian, when the horse finished second to Greene Street in the 2000 running of the cup.
Lilly Laguna was bred by Allan and Wayne Chittick and their Waikato brother Gary and they race her in partnership with Waipukurau's Peter Evans.
She is out of the Savabeel mare Savarose, who was the winner of one race and was out of the Balmerino mare Longlands. It is a family that the Chitticks have bred from over a number of years.
Lilly Laguna's victory last Saturday was aided by a great ride from apprentice jockey Joe Kamaruddin, who is rated by many as one of the most improved riders in the country.
After settling his mount midfield and up against the inside fence, Kamaruddin found he had a wall of horses in front of him approaching the home straight.
But the young jockey didn't panic, waiting until the field fanned rounding the final bend before searching for a gap between horses.
Lilly Laguna lodged a claim but looked likely to only fill a minor place until Kamaruddin urged his mount with a vigorous hands and heels ride and she surged ahead in the last few strides.
Last Saturday's win by Lilly Laguna has edged her trainer Bary one ahead of the Guy Lowry and Grant Cullen partnership in the race to be this season's top Hawke's Bay trainer.
The two stables have regularly fought out the Hawke's Bay trainers' premiership in recent years, with only one or two wins separating them on many occasions.
Lilly Laguna's victory took Bary's wins for this season to 10 while the Lowry/Cullen stable presently sits just one behind on nine.
These tallies are exactly what the two stables finished on last season, in a year that was severely interrupted by Covid-19 restrictions.
Two seasons ago the Lowry/Cullen stable finished on top with 12 wins compared to Bary's 11 while in 2018-19 Bary saddled up 26 winners compared to 25 for Lowry and Cullen.
Bary will have two runners at today's Wellington meeting while the Lowry/Cullen stable will line up one.
Bary has the promising first starter Swazi entered for the opening event, the $40,000 2-year-old race over 1200m.
The Australian-bred son of Choisir created a huge impression when winning a jumpout by 10 lengths over 750m at Hastings on March 3.
Bary will also have a runner in the day's feature race, the Group 1 $260,000 Wellington Seamarket Levin Stakes (1600m).
Blissful Belle, a Belardo filly, is stepping up a lot in class but was an impressive last start winner against older horses over 1600m at Hastings on March 2 and has had six starts for two wins, two seconds and a third.
The well performed sprinter Can I Get An Amen will represent the Lowry/Cullen stable in another of the day's black type races, the Listed $60,000 Lightning Handicap (1200m).
The Hallowed Crown mare has been freshened since finishing a game fourth in the Group 1 Telegraph Sprint (1200m) at Trentham in mid-January.
The form from that race has since been franked as two of the three horses who finished in front of Can I Get An Amen were Roch 'N' Horse and Levante and they finished first and fourth respectively in last Saturday's A$1million Newmarket Handicap (1200m) in Melbourne.
Ellerslie mothballed for 18 months
Horses will be absent from Ellerslie racecourse for at least the next 18 months.
A StrathAyr track will be put in at the Auckland venue as part of several measures agreed to after the amalgamation of Auckland Racing Club and Counties Racing Club last year.
While the club has given the industry the estimated timeframe, Auckland Thoroughbred Racing chief executive Paul Wilcox said it may take longer if needed.
"Our plan at this stage is 18months but one thing I have been vocal about is that we won't be back to race unless the track is signed off that it is ready to race," Wilcox said.
"We will go through a period of working with senior jockeys and trainers and make sure the track is ready for racing — doing jumpouts and moving into trials.
"We will have smaller cards to start off with before we build into a 10-race card."
The curtain was pulled down on racing at Ellerslie with the Auckland Cup meeting last Sunday, while trials held on the course the following day marked the last in the current track's operation.
"Construction of the StrathAyr track is set to get under way in the next few weeks.
"Towards the end of March - early April, the track will start to be dug up," Wilcox said.
"Our first priority is the track, but we are putting in a new underground entrance down by the 600m mark. That will be the entry and exit for anyone coming to Ellerslie. We want to remove the crossing.
"We have got the underpass already at the 150m on the home straight where people come on to the track. All our parking will be on the inside of the track.
"There is a lot going on, but our priority is to get that track right. We will then start to be looking at increasing stakes, which is incredibly important for our industry."
The club is currently working with New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing to decide where the club's feature meetings are to be held over the next two years.
"We are still working out where individual races will move to," he said.
"Counties will be taking some of our bigger days, as well as Te Rapa and Te Aroha, when that is back in full operation."
Track ratings to be changed
Punters on both sides of the Tasman will benefit from a change being made to the New Zealand track ratings early next month.
From Monday, April 4, the New Zealand track ratings will once again align with those introduced in Australia in 2014. While this move is part of NZTR's shift to the Single Nation System, it is being implemented at this time due to the significant amount of work needed to update racing data around horses currently racing.
Punters can therefore be comfortable that, when assessing from April 4 onwards, it will have been updated to reflect the new track ratings.
The key aspects to note are:
• Track categories will align with those in Australia-Synthetic, Firm, Good, Soft, Heavy.
• The rating numbers remain aligned to the penetrometer reading for that number
There will be no longer be a Heavy-11 category
While point one is self-explanatory, it does remove the mental gymnastics which were required under the current system when betting into the Australian markets and vice versa.
With regard to the second point around penetrometer readings, a Good-4, will still fall into the 2-6 to 2.8 penetrometer range. Likewise. A Soft-5 is still a track with a reasonable amount of give in it and will still be with 2.9 and 3.2. And a Heavy-8, a rain affected track which horses will get into, falls in the 3.9 to 4.2 range, which was previously described as a Slow-8.
Pitman stable brings up 2000th win
For someone who was once asked if he found his trainer's licence at the bottom of a Weet-Bix box, Riccarton trainer Michael Pitman has sure turned his racing dreams into a Kiwi-kid fairytale.
Pitman added to his list in a season of memorable milestones when his stable racked up its 2000th New Zealand winner at Riccarton last week.
Earlier this season Pitman produced his 1878th New Zealand winner to overtake Hall of Fame trainer Dave O'Sullivan and climb to second on the all-time winning trainers' list behind Hamilton's Graeme Rogerson.
Not long after that milestone the partnership of Pitman and his son Matthew claimed its 400th win.
Michael Pitman can't claim all 2000 wins. He was unable to hold a licence in both New Zealand and Australia when he had a stint of training out of Ballarat, in Victoria, in the 1990s and his wife Diane produced 93 wins under her own name during that time.
"In New Zealand I've trained 1909 winners so, along with Diane's wins on her own, the stable has now passed 2000 wins," said Pitman.
