Te Rapa win carries Marsh to brink of $5m season
Stephen Marsh’s dream domestic season is set to make him the $5 million man.
The Cambridge trainer added another black type win at Te Rapa on Saturday when Super Photon remained unbeaten in the Waikato Equine Veterinary Supplies Stakes, providing Marsh with his 10th black type winner in New Zealand this season.
He has another at The Valley in Australia with Antrim Coast, who ended a strong campaign with a fourth in the South Australia Derby on Saturday.
The 10 black type wins at home equals Marsh’s best seasons here of 2017 and 2021, and has come with some mammoth victories, including the Karaka Millions and Sistema Stakes with Velocious, the Telegraph with Mercurial and the Bonecrusher New Zealand Stakes with El Vencedor.
With only eight black type flat races left for the rest of the season, Marsh says he might struggle to get another before August 1.
“The racing team will be quite small over the next few months, as a lot of the better horses are spelling, or about to,” he says.
“Antrim Coast has had a great campaign, so he’ll go to the paddock and we won’t rush him back for the Hastings races. I don’t think we need to because he has so many big-money summer targets.
“Super Photon will start his spell on Monday and be set for the 2000 Guineas.
“We think he’s a very good horse and he’s a half brother to Mo’unga, who has just been retired to stand at stud.
“We’ve had some big offers for him but the owners have decided to keep him and he has some really big targets, and who knows, maybe a Group 1 to give him a shot at a stallion career.”
While Marsh won’t have huge numbers racing in the last three months of the season, he still looks set to top $5m in stakes in New Zealand alone, with Antrim Coast having won plenty more in Australia.
His team here have earned $4,858,460, over $1.3m more than his previous best domestic season last year.
“To be closing in on $5m in stakes at home is a wonderful achievement from the whole team at the stables.
“It’s a lot of money and the sort of number that wouldn’t have seemed possible a few years ago.”
Marsh is also certain to finish second again on the premiership with 77 wins to Mark Walker and Sam Bergerson’s 145. It will be the fifth straight year he has finished second on the national premiership.
“We’ve had an incredible year and the team have a lot to be proud of.”
Kentucky Derby drama
Mystik Dan won the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby in a dramatic photo finish at Churchill Downs yesterday.
He edged out Sierra Leone and Forever Young in a rare three-horse photo finish to capture the first leg of the Triple Crown.
An 18-1 chance, Mystik Dan made the most of a perfect rails gap ride around the home turn to hold on from Sierra Leone and Forever Young, the latter pair engaging in a bumping duel down the home straight.
It was the 10th time in the Derby’s history a horse has won by a nose and the first since Grindstone in 1996.