Tarzino made his presence felt at Riccarton where his son Star Ballot posted a stylish winning performance over 2000 metres on Saturday to draw further attention to his Karaka-bound sister.
The lightly raced four-year-old has improved with each outing this preparation after resuming with a seventh placing at Ashburton and successfully backed up following a luckless third on the opening day of the Cup meeting.
“This is a fantastic result for a great bunch of owners. We don’t buy a lot of horses and I sent a message out to my owners that we might want to buy a few and we got such an overwhelming response and this guy was one of them,” co-trainer Michael Pitman.
“He was a certainty beaten on the first day and he’s backed up three weeks in a row so that tells you something about him – I really like this horse.”
Ridden by Daniel Stackhouse, the gelding settled midfield and was into the clear at the top of the straight and finished powerfully to score in a driving finish.
“He’s a really nice, progressive horse and was very unlucky on the first day,” he said.
“He was strong through the line and Michael and Matthew Pitman and their team have done a fantastic job.”
“This is a nice progressive horse who was unlucky the other day,” Stackhouse said.
Bred by Gerry Harvey, Star Ballot was secured out of Westbury Stud’s Ready to Run Sale draft for $45,000 and on Wednesday his sister will be offered as Lot 48 at Karaka where 10 Tarzino juveniles will be offered.
They are out of the winning More Than Ready mare Cast Your Vote, who has a 100 percent record at stud with all four of her foals to race have been successful.
A daughter of the multiple Group placegetter Confer, Cast Your Vote has unraced fillies by Swiss Ace and Tarzino and returned to the latter this season.
Meanwhile, a fitting result was posted at Newcastle where the Kiwi-bred Redwood Shadow was successful in the New Zealand Bloodstock Jack Newton Mile Legend.
Aided by a top ride from Jason Collett, the Joseph Pride-trained representative produced an undeniable finish.
Redwood Shadow was bred by Darrell Hollinshead and in posting his fourth career victory continued the grand run of form from Redwood’s progeny.
That continued at Hastings on Sunday when the progressive Astron collected an early breakthrough success over 1400 metres.
The four-year-old has been patiently handled by Cody Cole, whose father Tony bred and part-owns the gelding.
Westbury’s Group 1-winning son of High Chaparral will be represented by 10 two-year-olds in next week’s New Zealand Bloodstock Ready to Run Sale at Karaka.