Bernard's Blog - 6 March
Lisa Allpress makes history winning on Matmon owned by King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Supplied.
It is perhaps timely that we mark International Women’s Day on Sunday after our own Lisa Allpress created racing history last weekend.
The three-time champion New Zealand jockey became the first women to win a race in Saudi Arabia at her first ride in the International Jockeys’ challenge which preceded the world’s richest race, the $20m Saudi Cup.
With women jockeys a long-accepted part of the racing landscape in New Zealand it is easy to forget how women in other racing jurisdictions are still struggling to make their mark and gain acceptance.
To read more about Lisa’s great achievement go here and to catch her interview on One News click here.
There was certainly plenty to get excited about with last weekend’s racing and this weekend will be no different.
Ellerslie has three Group one races being contested on Saturday. The two-year-olds will go around in the Group One Sistema Stakes; the weight-for-age horses line up in the Group One Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes, before the 2020 running of the Barfoot and Thompson Auckland Cup. It will be interesting to see how the Ciaron Maher/David Eustace trained Azuro, along with Sound over from Mike Moroney’s Australian stable measure up against the local stayers.
New Zealand will also be represented at Randwick, with the Tony Pike trained The Bostonian in the Group One Canterbury Stakes.
This week saw what were expected to be the final oral submissions to the Transport and Infrastructure select committee. If you missed seeing them, they can be found on the select committee’s Facebook page here.
The Select Committee is due to report back to parliament on 17 April prior to the second reading of the Bill.
Last week’s blog talked about some of the key points which came out of the Asian Racing Conference. We have had some inquiries from people wanting to know whether any of the presentations will be available to view online. The videos are in the process of being finalised and we will share a link to these just as soon as they are released.
